Teach meet in Taunton

Here are my notes from the teach meet last week at Bishop Fox's school in Taunton. What a lovely evening - especially the food made by the Year 11 catering team. There were ideas for all subjects. 

Search for soul pancake on YouTube.

Table Safari - places information or texts on tables for students to move around and collect information.

Extended writing - keep asking why for students to extend their answers and give reasons in their writing.

Use haiku deck as an alternative to PowerPoint.

Give students hexagons for them to put keywords from the lesson. Ask them to make links between hexagons. Can they join theirs up with their partners?

The scary scale 0-10 - learning check on MWB.

Flipped learning - homework is to find out about and then use next lesson to complete a task.

Look for stanchester school's lesson planning app and question generator app using Bloom's.

Pointless gameshow - items you would find in a pencil case. Students to come up with as many answers in 100 seconds as possible. The most obscure the better. If other teams have your answer you get a point. Team with the least points wins. 

bit.ly/tmtaunton for tutor time activities

Add apps to your wish list in App Store and it will notify you when it's free.

¡looɔ sı uʍop ǝpısdn ƃuıʇıɹʍ

I discovered a website that flips your text upside down - fliptext.net. It also allows you to write in other languages. 

 ˙puıs ƃıʇsnl ǝıs lıǝʍ 'ǝɯlıɟ ǝqǝıl ɥɔı

sɯlıɟ sǝl ɹǝpɹɐƃǝɹ ǝɹopɐ,ɾ

You type the text you want flipped in and then copy and paste it into a document, text, tweet. Very cool! 

There is also an app that I've downloaded!

Teachmeet - Exeter Oct 2013

There were some lovely ideas at the teachmeet last Thursday. Here are just a few:
1. Active phonics - chant phonics to a tune with different parts of the class chanting different ones.
2. Cross-curricular project with drama based on the play, the pearl necklace. Played cluedo as part of the preparation (je pense que c'est...)
3. Tarsia - google and choose hermitech labs, formulator tarsia. Can also produce follow me cards.
4. Creative talk - what's in the news in France/Germany? Look at government websites.
Dual language texts add cultural context - find the French or translate sentences.
Design own shelter box and justify.
Students produce their own vocab lists with at least 5 verbs, 3 adjectives etc. I have 9 words if you can match 5 or more of mine = reward (2 stamps). Next, use vocab to form sentences. Use sentences to have a debate (opinions), be in role, record on voice thread.
5. Differentiated mind mapping, triangle progress for unit - colour in when done.

1,2,3 Reading challenge

Students read a text aloud in pairs or small groups. They choose to read either one, two or three words. The student who reads out the final word loses. They could also lose if they read out the last word on each line or their partner gets a point. The student with the most points wins. 

Guess the room!

Record some sounds to play to the class. Soundhound would be good for this or there are some sounds on YouTube. Students have to decide which room there are from. Here are some suggestions:

• running a tap
• flushing the toilet
• brushing your teeth
• turning the shower on
• boiling a kettle
• opening a bottle of fizzy drink
• running the washing machine
• opening the fridge door
• using the microwave
• dropping ice into a glass
• laying the table
• scraping a chair across the floor
• switching the radio on or off
• turning on the TV
• typing on the PC
• opening a packet
• cutting with scissors
• using a hair dryer 
• brushing your hair
• climbing stairs

Wordle

I really like wordle for displaying text. Here are 10 examples of how I've used it in the past. 

1. View for 30 secs - how many words can you remember? 

2. How many adjectives can you spot? 

3. Introduce new vocabulary. Find the 10 items of food etc. 

4. Speaking task where your partner ticks off words as you use them. How many can you use in 1 minute? Same for writing. How many can you include? 

5. I say the English and students shout out the colour of the French, German word.  

6. Introduce the vocab test words. Students could guess the words they need to learn for homework as a plenary.

7. Copy an article from a newspaper/ song lyrics and see the most common words used.

8. Give students a wordle in black and white and ask them to colour all nouns one colour, past verbs another etc.

9. Displays or labels

10. I can't remember who but someone on twitter kindly produced the wordle attached to this post which contains all the words from the GCSE listening papers. Students highlight the ones they know and learn the ones they don't. 

Getting students talking!

I've recently been trying out some activities in my lessons that I'd forgotten about and haven't used for a while to try and get my students speaking. Here are two that worked well. 

Taboo - this works well in pairs or as a whole class. Display a word or picture that a student has to guess with 3 or 4 words that the class are not allowed to use when describing it. For example on the topic of jobs, the word could be chef de cuisine. Words they were not allowed to say were cuisine, restaurant or nourriture. Students could use words or phrases to describe the job - il travaille avec les serveurs. Il prépare les repas. For an extra challenge give them a time limit. 

Just a minute - students talk for a minute on a chosen topic. Partners could have key words they tick off when they hear them. Instead of using a timer, their partner colours in a shape and they have to keep talking until it's completely shaded.