#mlap14 Maths Like a Pirate

I was a bit mean, on the timetable I put "MLP" and had them guessing what it meant. They all thought it stood for Maths, Literacy and Painting! Little did they know!!

Maths like a Pirate (#mlap14) has been amazing. Challenge 1 – bridge building was great, all students actively engaged in their mixed ability groups, and so competitive…a perfect example of collaboration and competition as per an #edchatnz twitter chat of a couple of weeks ago. 

Students identified so many areas of maths that were used and their bridges were all very different…one even held the weight of an average sized year 3 boy!  

 The marble run wasn’t quite as successful which I attribute to tiredness from camp and the fact that not all students knew what a marble run was! 

Discussion about why it is Maths like a Pirate and not a Princess or Dinosaur was interesting, students came up with team work, having fun and getting the treasure… a good start! Looking forward to this week’s build a tower from tooth picks and marshmallows!

Will check on the school's policy about posting photos on the web before adding to the #mlap14 blog.

Coming up for air!

Well I feel I can finally come up for some air! Two weeks of my own classroom and i’ve just about stopped looking over my shoulder waiting for feedback or suggestions about how to do things!

Being in someone else’s classroom is a blessing and a curse….so many resources, but finding what fits for me has been challenging and time consuming. I found that I wanted to use everything, and so became slightly over whelmed about what was available. The way I have overcome this at the moment has been to look at my plans and what needs to be achieved and then find the resources to fit. At first, I had the resources and tried to get the learning to fit…completely the wrong way to do things! It’s all about the learning – for me and my students!

What has also helped me cope has been 2 planning days; my class went to camp without me, so I was able to re-arrange the classroom so less students had their backs to the whiteboard, put up my resources to support the learning, and generally make it mine! I feel like I’m wearing my own shoes now, not someone else’s.

Can’t believe 2 weeks are done and only 5 more until the end of the year. Two jobs have come up at QPS so will be applying for them…fingers crossed!