The Secrets of Cuisenaire Rods - Jo Loveridge (Numicon Conference 2025)

Unlocking Maths with Cuisenaire Rods: More Than Just Coloured Sticks!

Ever heard of Cuisenaire Rods? You might have seen these colorful wooden (or plastic) blocks in a classroom, but many people don't realise the incredible power they hold for teaching mathematical concepts. It's pronounced "kwee-zin-air"!

So, what exactly are Cuisenaire Rods, and how can these unassuming tools transform the way we learn and teach math? Let's dive in!

The Power of Concrete Learning

At their heart, Cuisenaire Rods are a brilliant example of the Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract (CPA) approach to learning. This widely recognised teaching strategy moves from:

• Concrete: Hands-on manipulation of physical objects (like these rods!).

• Pictorial: Representing those objects with images or drawings.

• Abstract: Finally, understanding the concept using symbols and numbers.

Cuisenaire Rods excel at that crucial first "concrete" step, allowing learners of all ages to physically explore mathematical ideas before grappling with abstract numbers.

A Little History: The Man Behind the Rods

These ingenious rods were developed in 1945 by Georges Cuisenaire, a Belgian primary school teacher, musician, and mathematician. His unique background allowed him to see the connections between different forms of learning and create a tool that bridges the gap between abstract mathematical concepts and tangible understanding.

What Makes Them So Special?

Unlike some math manipulatives, Cuisenaire Rods (like in our Numicon Kits - not all Cuisenaire Rods are weighted)  have a few unique properties that make them incredibly powerful:

• Weighted for Equivalence: If you have a set, you might notice they feel surprisingly substantial. This isn't accidental! The rods are weighted to show equivalence. For example, two white rods placed on a balance scale would perfectly balance one red rod, visually demonstrating that two 'ones' equal a 'two'.

• Don't Assign Numbers (Initially!): This is a big one! When you first introduce Cuisenaire Rods, the magic happens when you don't immediately assign numbers to them. Instead, focus on relationships and observations.

Let's Explore! What Do You Notice?

This open-ended question is key to using Cuisenaire Rods effectively. Lay out a few rods and ask:

• "What do you notice about these rods?"

• "How are they the same or different?"

• "Can you find a rod that is exactly the same length as two white rods put together?"

These simple questions encourage critical thinking and discovery.

 

Unpacking some Key Maths Concepts with Rods

Once learners start making observations, you can guide them to explore more specific mathematical ideas:

• Odd & Even Numbers: Can you use the rods to show odd and even numbers? (Hint: even numbers can be perfectly made up of 'pairs' or by two equal halves, while odd numbers will always have a "leftover").

• Comparing Length: This is a natural starting point. "Which rod is longer than the yellow one?" "Which is shorter than the green one?" This builds foundational understanding of comparative language.

• Centimetre and Gram Equivalent: Cuisenaire Rods are cleverly designed to be both centimetre and gram equivalent. This means a rod that is 5cm long also weighs roughly 5 grams (or a proportional weight depending on the material). This subtle feature reinforces the connection between length and mass, and later, volume.

• Relational Understanding: Perhaps the most important aspect: Cuisenaire Rods are relational. Their value isn't fixed; it's always in relation to another rod. If you decide the white rod is "1," then the red is "2," the light green is "3," and so on. But what if you decide the dark green rod is "1"? Then the white rod becomes a fraction! This flexibility is powerful for teaching fractions, ratios, and algebraic thinking.

Beyond Simple Lengths: Area and Perimeter

Cuisenaire Rods aren't just for linear measurement! They can be used to visualize more complex concepts:

• Area: By arranging rods in a flat rectangular shape, you can build and understand area. "How many white rods does it take to cover this red rod?" Then, stack them to show how the "units" fill a space.

• Perimeter: Remember, "peri" means around, and "meter" means measure. Lay out rods to form a shape, and then "measure around" the outside using smaller rods (or even your fingers) to understand perimeter.

The Ultimate Flexibility: "Call 'One' Anything You Like!"

This is the golden rule of Cuisenaire Rods and what makes them so versatile. By allowing different rods to represent the value of "one," you open up a world of possibilities for exploring fractions, ratios, and different number bases without the intimidation of abstract symbols right away.

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Cuisenaire Rods are more than just a classroom toy; they are a sophisticated mathematical tool designed to build deep, intuitive understanding and are definitely worth exploring.

Numicon Conference 2025 - Louise Pennington

 

Diving Deep into Numicon: A Journey to Enhance Maths Learning

During the recent term break, I had the privilege of attending the inaugural New Zealand Numicon Conference in Auckland. This was a particularly exciting opportunity as our school has adopted Numicon as our Structured Literacy approach for Years 0-3, thanks to a Ministry of Education resourcing project. My attendance was self-funded, driven by a personal commitment to deeply understand this approach and elevate my mathematics teaching. An added bonus was sharing this experience with my daughter, who is in her first year of teaching and whose school kindly arranged her registration – I simply couldn't miss out!

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Unpacking the Power of Maths Talk

The conference featured an inspiring keynote by Louise Pennington from Oxford University Press, who opened both days. Her initial presentation brilliantly highlighted the crucial role of "Maths Talk".

The Numicon Approach itself is designed to foster a rich and comprehensive understanding of mathematics. It moves learners from hands-on experiences to abstract concepts, allowing them to see and feel numbers. This approach aims to increase deep understanding by revealing patterns and connections, ultimately helping students grasp the very structure of numbers. A core tenet is to ignite joy and excitement in Mathematics, following the well-established Concrete-Pictorial-Abstract (CPA) framework.

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Why Language is Key in Mathematics

Louise Pennington delved into the compelling research behind the importance of talk in mathematics, especially considering low language skills post-COVID. Key takeaways included:

• Centrality of language to thinking and remembering: Articulating mathematical ideas solidifies understanding.

• Verbalizing errors and misconceptions: Talking through mistakes helps in identifying and correcting them.

• Difficulty of specific vocabulary: Technical mathematical terms are best learned within context.

We also explored various ways we communicate – physically, linguistically, cognitively, and socio-emotionally – and practical structures for facilitating communication:

• Nest: Encouraging thinking time and oral rehearsal.

• Pairs, Trios, Transverse, Circle, Fishbowl: Collaborative grouping strategies.

The profound message was clear: ways of thinking and ways of talking develop together, hand in hand.

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The Enduring Value of Manipulatives

  

The use of manipulatives in Mathematics is strongly supported by educational theorists like Piaget, Bruner, and Montessori. They are instrumental in increasing learning and retention, helping students internalize what they've learned.

Crucially, for new mathematical words to be understood and used, children need to hear them between 4 and 20 times. This is why Numicon lessons thoughtfully include 'key words' for teachers to incorporate into their planning, ensuring consistent exposure and mastery.

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Attending this conference truly reinforced the power of a structured, language-rich, and hands-on approach to teaching mathematics. It's exciting to see how Numicon will continue to transform maths learning for our youngest students!

Journey into Structured Literacy

 I'm not sure when exactly it was that I started exploring structured literacy.  

I wish it was when I first started teaching as my students would have experienced a much stronger literacy development in classes I taught.  It wasn't. I wish it was when my son (and oldest daughter) struggled to learn to read and I couldn't understand why, when they had just said the correct word on the page before, they couldn't say it again on the next page.  Reading Recovery helped my daughter (perhaps it was our personalities that got in the way of her reading with me at home) but my son had Reading Recovery for twice as long as students were meant to get.  I knew that reading and writing didn't 'click' with him.  He was a good talker! I wish I knew of Structured Literacy when he had a dyslexia diagnosis as a 9 or 10 year old.  Maybe I could have supported him or known the kind of learning support to access for him to guide him into a different way of learning what he needed to be confident in basic literacy. I didn't. Teacher guilt. Mum guilt.

Prior to 2019 the extent of my 'phonics' teaching was linked to handwriting where we would say "a is for apple, 'a', 'a', apple" as the letter a was neatly formed on the lines or a little bit of 'Jolly Phonics' with touches of a multisensory approach - the sound stories and actions linked to the letter sounds and names and then cvc words in isolation. In 2019 our school had some phonics training for the junior (Year 1 - 4) teachers with Yolanda Soryl.  This was a good starting point for my journey into Structured Literacy as that year I worked with some Year 4 students who, like my son, didn't 'get' the code of reading or writing - especially evident in their writing.  I upskilled myself and looked for opportunities to get some professional development and attended 'Spelling is Telling' with Carla McNeil of Learning Matters.  Looking for low cost ways to support 'target' students I found free decodable texts to 'back' up the sounds I was teaching. I was trying but still 'fumbling' around with what I know students needed for success but not really sure 'how' to get them there or to teach them.  2020 was a bit more of the same - another amble, rather than following a set route, through the park of Structured Literacy although a nationwide 'lockdown' gave me time to explore SL more and I participated in various webinars and watched videos of experts in SL and even Speech Language Therapists talking about phonemic, orthographic and graphemic awareness.

2021 is a key year in my Structured Literacy Journey.  I resented the time needed to put into learning a new way of teaching literacy as this was on top of all of the expectations of day to day teaching, Team Leadership as well as a PB4L role I had as a Kahui Ako Leader in my school.  It was 'on top' of everything else.  While I resented the time, I didn't resent the learning. With other teachers and most importantly, my students, we began teaching literacy in a more structured way using The Literacy Collective supported by Carolyn and Ande of Clarity Education.  The resources were brilliant (despite having to print them off and laminate them for use with my students - more time involvement) and my students really got into using them in class.  Another lockdown allowed me to develop teaching skills with the support of TLC slides and 'Screencastify' where I taught the focus sounds using the resources and, using Seesaw, uploaded these recordings along with the TLC follow up tasks.  Another teacher in our team digitised the TLC worksheets for students to interact with on Seesaw and they loved these way better than the paper version.  Feedback from a few parents was key for me here, their children had been in a play based first few years of school (I love play and still feel that our children need to be able to play to explore their world and learn about it) but like me, their teachers didn't yet know the power of Structured Literacy and the need for direct, explicit and responsive teaching of the sounds of speech, letters and how they work together for ALL learners.

                                    TLC practise tasks                      Enlisting my daughter to create resources

This year our principal has supported the Year 5 and 6 team with a subscription to the iDeal Leanring Platform which is a New Zealand based Structured Literacy option with a clear scope and sequence.  I am still getting my head around this, and teaching a new year level (I was in Year 4 last year) but as with TLC, I appreciate the clarity of where to start and where to next as well as the support of the slide presentation and follow up resources for students.  I especially like that there are downloadable decodable texts that I can use with my students who did not respond well to a balanced literacy approach - like my oldest daughter and son (my middle daughter took to reading and writing like a duck to water).

The beginnings of a 'sound wall' using TLC resources

The Class Chapter Book

'Reading aloud is the foundation for literacy development. It is the single most important activity for reading success.'

Neuman et al. (2000) cited in 'The Reading Book' by Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey (2019)

Since I have been teaching Year 3 and Year 4 students I have enjoyed daily time in our class chapter book.  This has been supplemented by Chapter Chat NZ (find them on facebook) who has introduced some great books that students have loved. We have loved books by Suzanne Selfors - Imaginary Vetinary Series and Peter Brown's Wild Robot Books. Last year my Year 4 Class enjoyed 'The Mouse and the Motorcycle' by Beverly Cleary. At the end of 2019 we read 'Fish in a Tree' by Linda Mulally Hunt, I was aware that this was set at a higher age group for my class but as I had a few students with dyslexia in my class I thought it important for others in the class to 'see' what it might be like for others and for the students with dyslexia to see that it is different but it doesn't need to be a 'bad different'. Reading these books with my class has opened for some students a love of story, of wanting to read the books themselves and grown their listening skills as they are engaged in the story being read and want to hear what's happening. Students are visualising the story that is being shared with them orally. Reading along with chapter chat has allowed students to make connections with other students exploring these stories through twitter and it has encouraged them to take the text further, being creative with it, exploring vocabulary, responding to comprehension questions and inspiring their own writing.

Over the last couple of years I have observed the choices of books my students make for their 'cave' or independent reading times. These have included the 'How To Train Your Dragon' books, anything by David Walliams, books by Dav Pilkey, Harry Potter Books, Books by Jeff Kinney, Andy Griffiths, Tom Gates, Geronimo Stilton, Ella Diaries, and Stacy Gregg's horse books. When considering a class chapter book, I like to read books the students probably haven't read before and have found these the most successful for read alouds.

I am reflecting on this now as I chanced upon a series that I was unaware of (not uncommon) but picked up and read the first one last night (currently my summer break but always thinking school...). I'm now keen to get hold of the next 3 in the series! This is The Dragon Defenders series and has been authored by a New Zealand Author: James Russell, making it even more awesome. I enjoyed the first book in this series because it introduced a family living on an island in an 'off the grid' and 'plastic free' environment. It demonstrated that one doesn't need devices to be entertained. While demonstrating these 'values' the author and illustrator have also utilised Augmented Reality to give 3D imagery to the story. I wish I had known about #nzreadaloud a few years ago when this book first came out...or even last year when they worked through the 4th book of this series!

Getting involved with Chapter Chat and also NZ Readaloud gives teachers resources to increase the learning opportunities for students with chapter books as well as to make connections with other classes in New Zealand reading the same text. You know your students are enjoying the story from the silence in the room and when students get the book we are reading from the school or local library so they can read along too!

What chapter books have you found successful as books to read to your students?

The 'Art' of Teaching Literacy

Today I had the opportunity to participate in the Otago Literacy Symposium held at Elmgrove School in Mosgiel.  It was my second time going to this particular symposium.  These are great opportunities to get some PL from real teachers in real class environments as well as educational psychologists and current lecturers of training teachers. As it is in school term break there was no need to feel guilty for being away from my students plus I get time to process what I have heard and seen. An added bonus was that they had filtered coffee too!

We need to connect to the joy and passion of learning.

The keynote presenter was Sarah Aiono of Longworth Education. She spoke of the need for the 'Science' of Teaching Literacy and that the 'science is strong'. Science is the foundational skills of learning and we need to have balance so that we don't swing too far in one direction so that students don't make progress and that in play, the environment should show the science behind the literacy. Sarah's focus today was the ART, the JOY.

Reading should not be presented to children as a chore, a duty. It should be offered as a gift.

Kate DiCamillo

A 2017 UK study by The National Foundation For Education Research identified that as reading progress went up, the enjoyment of reading when down.  This was most prominent in 11 year old boys and further to this, since 2003, girls pleasure in reading has dropped.

“Children’s success in life depends not on whether they can read, but on whether they do” 

― Guy Claxton, What's the Point of School?: Rediscovering the Heart of Education

Literacy was described as a tool to connect but not necessarily the learning itself as it is needed to access all other curriculum learning areas.

• Bring back the magic and the joy
• Encourage curiosity
• Connect the literacy to what matters to our students - they will do it if it matters

It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.

Albert Einstein

The Mystery of the Contaminated Chocolate

For the final week of Term 1 I decided to add a bit of 'mystery' to our maths in Wai 4. On Monday I asked the students to take on roles as 'Maths Investigators'.  We read the briefs of 5 different investigations and voted on the investigation we most wanted to solve.  I signed up to Twinkl recently and it is from here that I sourced the investigations. The idea of someone spiking a tub of chocolate with chilli oil grabbed their attention and that particular investigation took out top votes. Below is an image of what you can access as a member of Twinkl.

Later that day I once more set the scene and we had an investigators briefing session.  Investigation ops teams were set for the week (mixed groupings) using my 'popsicle sticks' app.  The list of suspects was glued into student 'Investigation Logs', AKA Maths Books, and we looked carefully at the information on the list to work out what it contained.  We also looked at the initial crime scene information.  We knew that someone had spiked the chocolate with chilli oil and we had to solve clues from the crime scene to work out who the culprit was.  The maths in it was hard.  I had to 'edit' some of the questions to ensure they were appropriately challenging for students to experience success.

This week we have learned about measuring angles and how to use a protractor.  We have explored fractions and algebraic equations.  Today we created a times tables grid that we can use to solve the final clue before we will find out why the crime was carried out.  The best part is that students have been eager to do maths!  Today I heard from a parent that sharing this learning is the only thing her son has willingly discussed at home this year so far.

 I have seen students 'Reach Up' and 'Reach Out' in their learning, going above and beyond to work to solve the clues.  They have shown huge 'Resilience' in the way they have been working through the clues. We have been able to work out what we need to learn to be able to solve the clues (e.g. we found Youtube clips on angles and how to use a protractor to find out eye colour). We watched a further video to simplify fractions so we could grow our understanding of these in order to find out what kind of transport our culprit used. The solution was a 'bike' but this could have been a motorbike or a bicycle.  Some students decided it must be the suspect who used a motorbike because they didn't think criminals would ride a bicycle - it wouldn't be fast enough to get away!  They were most surprised when it wasn't Harold (the motorbike rider) because it was a female (as they discovered after they had solved some algebraic equations). I edited these equations to ensure the questions would allow for students to be successful at solving them in groups.

Today I observed students working in groups to complete a blank multiplication grid (this is a tool to help them solve the final clue tomorrow).  It was fascinating and informative, for me as the teacher, to see the students who could identify patterns with numbers and to connect what they already know about numbers.  Links between skip counting and repeated addition became evident as they did their 2, 5 and 10 times tables across and down the grid.  One student, who wouldn't usually speak up in maths time, demonstrated skills he has been practising using online tools of Study Ladder and Skoolbo to count on so he could work out the next number in the sequence.

Alongside various Mathematics skills, understanding and problem solving, these students have been working on Oral Language to share and discuss their ideas as well as the Key Competencies of Thinking, Using Language Symbols and Texts, Managing Self, Relating to Others and Participating and Contributing.

I have followed 'Number Agents' on Facebook and loved the way it engages young learners and gets them exploring and playing with maths concepts. I read the book and I have been trying to find a way to bring this playfulness into learning maths in a Year 4 class and maybe I have found a way using the Twinkl Maths Investigations!

As one of the Within School Leads (WSL) for our Community Of Learning (COL) we have been using the NPDL quadrants as a way of planning for and reflecting on our learning. I have used the 4 quadrants as a reflection tool for this learning so far:

I wonder what investigations will be carried out next term?

Inspiring Writing

 It seems to be my male students who don't jump at the chance to put pen to paper.  This appears to be a wider issue than just my current class and last years class...and many years previously. But sometimes the girls aren't keen either.  My previous post about Writing Resources had a few options that could garner the interest of some of these students.

I was checking out some resources on Teach Starter and '7 Ways to Guide and Inspire Reluctant Children to Write' piqued my interest. On reading this blog post, I was drawn to the idea about a 'story box'.  We are still working through the School Kit 'Get New Zealand Writing' project and over the last two days we have been exploring 13 items in a tin and writing words associated with these.  When they didn't need to write sentences but rather lists, students who often choose not to write, got writing pretty much straight away.











Is it the 'hands on' opportunities?
Is it the language building?
Is it that sentences don't have to be correctly constructed?
Is it the 'mystery' of the story tin?

The idea presented in the Teach Starter blog of a story box is one I am looking into setting up each week to prompt or generate writing ideas.  Not just a tub of possible story starters but 'story seeds' by way of objects, pictures, textures along with relevant story starters.  To begin this process (when we have completed our Get NZ Writing project next week) I will use a 'passion profile' students completed last week to help me select a direction.  Relevant vocabulary in the 'story box' will help to scaffold writers who find spelling a challenge too.

                        

Southland Mathematics Symposium

Last Saturday I left home at 5:45am to drive to Invercargill after booking in the few days prior to the symposium.  I tend to get quite a lot out of these as the workshops are run by teachers for teachers. Having ideas and suggestions from 'real' teachers who work with a class of students on a regular basis is the best kind of Professional Learning IMO.

Joanne Mulligan, McQuarrie University, was our Keynote Speaker.  The focus was spatial development alongside early number and looking at the pattern and structure in mathematical learning.  I attended two workshops run by classroom teachers - Culturally Responsive Practice in Mathematics and Contextual Maths Problems.

My Takeaways include many tasks and ideas from Joanne's Keynote such as having students draw a 100s board to see what their understanding of the structure of number looks like and an estimation task.  The estimation task asks students to estimate how much of Australia would be covered by the land area of NZ.  We can create images in our minds of this to make an estimation.  Some of us will need to 'see' the land areas as on a map:

When you can see them side by side you can make a 'spatial' estimation.  To be more accurate, facts and figures may be needed.

A task like this could be used to consider regions in NZ, North & South Island, Stewart Island...lakes etc. and provides great links with geography and area.

Creativity in mathematics is to be valued.

My other takeaway was a more explicit use of Maths Problems with students.  This workshop talked about needing to explore the 'context' of a maths problem alongside the inherent maths 'concepts'.  Both have vocabulary that needs to be made explicit to students. The 'launching' of these problems is important for students understanding of the problem.

• Unpack the context first and then the mathematical language.
• Look for the maths in different contexts e.g. Maori history, Dinosaurs...what interests/ engages your students? 
• Use pictures and videos to open windows into the problems for students.
• Don't be afraid to take it further than just the problem on the paper.  What if....?
• Bring drama into the story.

Today in my Year 4 class we worked on one of the NZ Maths problems - Coin Exchange

This was our first foray into problem solving this year and we spent a bit of time unpacking the problem, discussing the coins that could be used and looking at the different resources students could use to find the possibilities.  Students were busy working through the different possibilities for 20 minutes with many focused on writing out different possibilities.  Maybe it was because it was our first work through of problems, or maybe they enjoyed the exploration in their maths.  We did a 'walk and a gawk' where students were able to silently move around the room to see how others were working through the problems.  Students then went back to their spaces and continued to document further possibilities.

Before our final whole class debrief, students shared what they had discovered with a partner (we will continue to work on 'talk moves' to justify our thinking).

It was great to see students working through the possibilities systematically and their willingness to share ideas and to learn from each other.  I am looking forward to tomorrows maths problem!

Back to the symposium, after joining the presenters and main organisers for lunch at The Grille, I drove home again with lots of ideas buzzing in my head!  

The Game of Learning

This year a few things seem to be connecting.  I have always valued play, Early Childhood teacher as well as Primary! At the end of 2017 I discovered 'Number Agents' on facebook when looking into ways to increase student agency.  This concept would be very appealing in a New Entrant or Year 1 class and I can see how the puppets would draw the students into the stories and concepts.  Maybe if I learned maths in this way when I was younger I might have wanted to understand it more!  I have continued to follow the 'Number Agents Group' and the more I have seen, the more I can see I need to look to ways to implement aspects into my teaching practice.

In our first term break I attended a Literacy Symposium in Mosgiel where Gail Loane was speaking.  I downloaded 'Mechanically Inclined: Building Grammar, Usage, and Style into Writer's Workshop by Jeff Anderson after she mentioned the book...but while in the 'Kindle Shop' I saw 'Teach Like a Pirate by Dave Burgess and read the blurb before also downloading this book too.  I have been 'dipping' in and out of it since this time. It was at around this time that I read 'Disobedient Teaching' by Welby Ings.  Both of these books encouraged me to rethink the how and what of teaching so that the content could be more accessible to students.

A couple of weeks ago I was given the opportunity to attend a 'Games For Learning' workshop in Auckland.  The idea of using games in learning, having students create games and the idea of gamification of learning was presented, shared and experienced over this day.  In one of the workshops, Key Competencies for the Future' was recommended...I promptly visited Kindle and downloaded it but also downloaded 'Launch: Using Design Thinking to Boost Creativity... by John Spencer and others as well as 'Explore Like a Pirate' by Michael Matera.  It is Explore Like a Pirate that has inspired me most of late as it has got my mind thinking about ways to 'gamify' Year 4 in 2019.  This year I have had a boy heavy class and they have loved our class money and being able to use it in the class shop - they haven't loved filling in my simplified spreadsheet however.  They have also loved our Chapter Chat work, playing 'The Game of Awesome' and making their own board games.  We did Chapter Chat in the first couple of terms but not so much in the latter part of the year.  They really enjoyed the choice and creativity in the grid options for the Chapter Chat books we were reading: The Wild Robot, The Wild Robot Escapes and the Sasquatch Escape.

With 4 weeks left of the school year, I am thinking about what to be working on over the summer break and among other things (Seesaw Ambassador Refresher, Google Educator), setting up some kind of 'gamification' has my mind ticking over.  My poor husband had to listen to 'Mr Matera' via podcast (Well PlayED) all the way to Ophir and Back this evening (an hours drive from home) but I love that these give me different insights into what 'could be'.  I had to keep popping notes in my phone as I thought of things while listening to the podcasts.

Writing Resources for Teaching and Learning

This post is mostly about resources teachers can explore and consider whether they are useful in their classes, with their group of students and with the tools available to them. Many of the links that follow have been discovered through the NZ Teachers (Primary) Facebook group and some from Literacy Symposiums in Otago or Southland as well as others I have 'stumbled' across when looking for solutions to challenges in my teaching and learning.

First up, we have the Google Suite at our school and creating Google docs using Voice to Text extension is a great tool for students who find the task of writing laborious to the point where they are reluctant to put pen to paper. Students who have challenges with dyslexia and dysgraphia can find this a useful way to let their stories see the light of day! Text to Speech is also useful for these students to check that their writing makes sense and to think about where punctuation may need to be added.

School Kit - Get New Zealand Writing
This is a great resource to be completed in the first term of the year.  School Kit develops great kits, free to NZ teachers but often there are limited numbers.  My class is currently working on creating poems to share with a buddy class guided by materials in a kit and lesson plans using the headings 'find', 'apply' and 'produce'. We created a shared colour poem and are finding 'sticky words' that will be used in the creation of poems on 'postcards'.  Even without the actual kit, there are some fabulous ideas you can use in the free downloadable resource linked above. There are facebook groups where teachers are sharing what is being created to further inspire you and your students with this project.

 

The Game of Awesome
This is part of a 'success for boys' initiative and card packs can be accessed through 'Down the Back of the Chair' or downloaded and printed/ laminated. Some of the cards involve things like nose picking and toilet talk so are very appealing to students in general as well as the target users: boys. I recommend going into the Teacher Support Material for this game as it provides alternative ways to play as well as 'planning templates' you can use to scaffold the cards into plans for writing. You can take this further and create your own sets of cards (there are blank ones available) relating to a topic you are exploring with your students e.g. Seaweek or Fairytales.

The Literacy Shed
This is amazing for inspiring ideas in writing. Depending on the age group you teach and current events, you may need to be selective of the material that you choose to use to inspire your class.  Along with videos and photos there are suggestions of ways you can use the resources for writing in your classes. Some even have teaching plans such as 'The Little Shoemaker' however to access the actual plans you will need to be a member of 'The Literacy Shed +'  with paid access.

The Writing Book
This book is part of a collection including others on Oral Language, Reading Comprehension and Publishing and Display.  It is one of my 'go to' resources for looking at the process of learning in writing as well as mini lessons and planning templates to guide students such as burger plans for learning how to construct paragraphs. There are some free resources you can access via the link above to give you a 'taster' on what is on offer.

Mentor Sentences
I somehow stumbled across this idea early in 2017 when I came across this post while trying to find ways to support a small group of students in their understanding what a sentence actually was and how to correctly use simple punctuation.  A weeks free lessons was the clincher to give this a go and using the text: I wanna Iguana, I trialed it.  Students didn't know much about verbs and nouns, but they got adjectives reasonably quickly. This strategy also provided a way to work on handwriting (when they copied the sentence), to see themselves as editors - changing words to make the meaning clearer or the create a better picture in the readers mind and then even using the sentence structure in a different context.  Students were creative and fun in the way they used the sentence structure and most were enthusiastic to share their created sentences with the class.  

While attending the Otago Literacy Symposium in 2017, Gail Loane was the key note speaker.  I have been inspired by her book 'I've Got Something To Say' many times over as it shares a love of writing and the written word.  In a workshop with Gail, she used a section from Piano Rock by Gavin Bishop, the language was delightful and her work with us using this text as a springboard was fabulous. Mechanically Inclined by Jeff Anderson was recommended as a further way to build grammar its use and style into teaching writing in our classes/ workshops. This serves to help me understand the structure of our written language so I can better teach students. I downloaded this to my iPad via Amazon/ Kindle. I love this sentence from his book: "Grammar and mechanics are not rules to be mastered as much as tools to serve a writer in creating a text readers will understand."

Book Creator
While I have admired 'Book Creator' and played around with it, I haven't really used it effectively and this is something I want to change this year. This is available as an app for iPads and also as a free app on Chrome . As teachers, we can set up a class and students use a code to join the class.  There are some options as to what students can do with the texts e.g. publish to what audience, for teachers to consider.  Creating and sharing a digital book gives real purpose to writing and this is moving writing into the kind of realm that much of our reading happens in currently. Another great feature of 'Book Creator' is that it can be used in conjunction with 'Seesaw' to share with our parents and whanau.

Seesaw
While Seesaw has some tools to support writing development in students (through the activities you can use or create), its power, I believe, lies in the way it can document the process and growth of learning in all areas including writing.  Seesaw is a cross platform Learning Journal.  We are using this with our Year 1 - 4 students currently but there is no reason why older students couldn't also utilise this. Students can photograph their writing books, connect google docs or slides they have been constructing, add in 'book creator' creations and even add movies that are used to 'tell stories' or document what they have discovered. Students can share these (depending on the settings selected by the teacher in conjunction with the learning community) with parents and maybe also their classmates, inviting them to add feedback and feedforward through comments - text or voice and even video comments. Seesaw has both free and paid options.

What tools have you used and found useful in your class?

Why it's good for teachers to do things that are not 'school'

Over the last 18 months I have been busy behind the scenes organising a photography convention.  As things unfolded, it was my school that was to become our venue.  While I love my workplace, this venue was not my suggestion, one of the other team members found it and made enquiries as to it's availability. I digress.  It could be thought that this has nothing to do with teaching and learning but the opposite is true.  We all need passions and interests outside our occuupations to keep us fresh, challenged and invigorated or rested.  Photography and Papercrafts are my outlet.

I took with me to my role as 'secretary' in oganising this convention many skills from teaching - my ability to type, use google docs and spreadsheets but I added to these skills over the 18 months of convention organising.

I became a learner, a learner of how to pull off an event for 250 people in my home town.  I became a researcher, a trialler, an explorer and found myself in the pit many times.  Added to my 'secretary' role was the website and promotions.  I learned how to put together a webiste using Weebly, I researched how to create digital registration forms so there would be no manual entries of peoples registrations (trying to give us less work) and eventually settled on Jotform for it's integration with the Weebly site and google sheets.  We started using dropbox and our personal emails but quickly we came to find this structure not meeting our needs and a google account and drive was developed to keep all of our information and communications in one place.  I was a teacher as I guided the other adults in our team through the different things I was discovering and sharing with them how to use these. Transparency was key so that any one of use could do what needed to be done at any time.

To communicate with our delegates I learned how to use mailchimp, to create templates, add information and images to keep up interest.  I learned how to extract what I needed from our registration spreadsheet so that I could make these 'mail outs' personal for each delegate.

My final steep learning curve was using mailmerge in word for creating name tags to go in lanyards.  These needed to include names as well as the different workshops and field trips that delegates were registered for.

How can these things support me as a teacher?  I understand the process of learning to do new things, setting goals and experiencing failure and success along the way to achieving them.  I have skills that if needed, could be utilised by my school for running an event or function as well as new understandings of different free software I can use for desired outcomes.

What Do Mathematicians Do?

What image comes to mind when you think of a mathematician?

What image comes to mind when you think of someone learning maths?

I am working through a Mathematics Certificate  with the Open Polytechnic.  I have passed module 1 which was all about actually doing maths...doing maths things that I hadn't done for a number of years having been teaching Year 0-3 students.  This maths went up to Curriculum Level 5.  I worked through it, and secretly, actually enjoyed the process of working stuff out and how to solve the various problems I had to work through.

We have now moved onto Module Two - Doing Number and Algebra.  I think the top two questions would be fabulous to ask students as they can give a small window into students understandings of what maths is.

Math is all around us.

10 Reasons to Study Math:

A couple of things struck me in this video.  I like the simple way Danny explained maths to be a tool. and his statement "just because it's difficult doesn't mean we shouldn't do it".  This ties in with my learning in the first module of this paper.  Danny's examples of our need for maths in voting and law were fabulous as it's the ability to accurately read and assess data for ourselves and to be able to unpack mathematical reasoning that many roles in life will require.  It was interesting to think about the knowledge that we have that isn't written down by using the example of the 'Impossible Project' where they were unable to reproduce the Polaroid film as the ideas of the original engineers had understandings that were not written down.

I found it scary that a CEO doesn't need to know maths to a high level - I guess it would depend on what they were a CEO of...understanding profit and loss projections, employment rates and numbers, and marketing statistics would be some of the things I think they would need in their roles.

It's exciting to think of the value of mathematics in coding and analytics and it does seem to be something that future employment or income streams for students I teach will require mathematical thinking to possibly a higer degree than what has been needed in the past.

Daily 5

I first explored Daily 5 in 2012.  Loved the concept and it worked fabulously with the students I was working with (an older year 1 group).  I am looking into using Daily 5 in a more open plan learning environment next year and am in the process of doing a little research!

Digital Nomads
This post includes the role of the teacher as well as describing the components of Daily 5.  They are in an open plan environment.  Love the focus on blogging within the Daily 5.

The Contemporary Teacher
Interesting description of different open plan structures!

Virtual Learning Network
Some interesting comments and suggestions on this post!  Daily 5 in operation while teacher pulls out guided groups was one of the comments.  Data Literacy to inform teaching is something worth delving into - is this a key to successfully teaching in a collaborative environment?

Some Collaborative Planning Templates - could be useful!

Would love to know more about the Math Daily 3 but need to pay to join up a website to find out about it!

Audacity to Imagine

Sat down to do some planning...like to listen to TED talks when I do and came across this one:

What Adults Can Learn From Kids

Ended up listening too much to plan!

She starts with the idea of calling someone 'childish'.  Is this fair?  Perhaps we need more irrational thinking.  Adults come up with many reasons why not to do things, kids are allowed to think 'impossible' things.  "Audacity to imagine".

When expectations are low, kids will sink to them.  Scary.

A good 8minutes and 12 seconds.

Questioning the Learning Intention

First week of term 4.
I have been trialling the whole Learning Intention as a Question to elicit/ co-construct success criteria with students in our reading work.

I am enjoying this more than stating the learning intention.  This is about valuing what the student brings and is also giving me feedback on where the learning is strong, and where it is not, in turn, it is giving me feedback on my teaching.

An example of one from this week is:

How can we read a book with expression successfully?

• say the words the way they are written
• use the punctuation - " " means say it like the person talking, ? means say it like you are asking a question
• stop at the full stop not after every word.

Some of the challenges include taking longer to draw out the success criteria from students (this is getting quicker as the week progresses) and trying to reframe the learning intentions as questions, still trying to frame one on learning the long and short vowel sounds in word study...When developing our success criteria from a question with the whole class needs some re-working on my part.  More think-pair-share ways of working so that students aren't all sitting, waiting, listening to one contribution...not so great with students who have a 5 minute attention span!

I have loved capturing the child's voice in this way of structuring our learning focus for sessions in reading.   It is telling me what they know and by default, what they don't.  I have done it a little in writing and will work to ask questions for writing and maths in the next week.

it's all about the question

Back to school.  Writing reports last week and entering data.  Spent Monday and Tuesday working on a Photography Convention I am organising for 240 + people in 2016 and yesterday it was back to school for PL.  I think I need a holiday.  Some people say a change is as good as a holiday.  How does a question connect to this...well it's about new thinking, about change and a little bit about challenge.  Hattie.  Dweck.  Claxton.

The challenge has been set: to frame Learning Intentions as a question.  Then pause.  Students ideas form the teachers understanding of where they are at, tell us where to 'pitch' our guidance and starts the process of students stating the 'success criteria'.

Shifting from 'We are learning about fractions' to 'How do we use fractions successfully?'

By posing the LI as a question..

• 'how' makes it a question that focuses on a skill
• 'we' means we are part of a co-construction, a collaboration and is about the 'power of others'
• invites students to engage and share their prior knowledge
• the word successful is included so that the question is achievement focused and measure orientated - growth mindset - 'We are going to be successful!'
• questioning leaves it open for differentiated learning
• the answer means students have to think "how am I going to do it?".  This is about strategy.
• the teacher gets to know what a student already knows

So the question is asked.  Questions seek answers.  The answers can be shaped to form the success criteria.  The success criteria needs to be report ready.  There is a way SC are framed.

My mind is buzzing with the possibilities.  This thinking opens up possibilities and pathways.  This resonates with my early childhood and primary lenses.  It is child centred, a key aspect of my values as a teacher.  This isn't really new but rather things I have been mulling over in my mind this year with this group of learners.  Despite not having a holiday, the prospect of change is invigorating.

So, going into Term 4...an example of a LI as a question:
How can we present our artwork successfully?

How to get the SC?  students in groups of 4 - share back their ideas, pull out the common language and together put this into the correct 'framing' of SC - report ready SC!

Wonderings.  Ideas.  Ways Forward.

• PLODs as a way of planning - just in time planning
• The Questioning of Learning Intentions
• Stop Writing the Objectives on the Board

Paper Planes

I watched the movie 'Paper Planes' with my daughter.  The trailer intrigued me, with my teacher hat on, as it talked about a child with a passion for paper planes.  I'm all about students having 'passions' for things.  The learning and engagement that goes on when we are passionate about something is more meaningful, more intense, more focussed and so much more 'real' than the scenarios I often prepare to 'hook' my students in.

A student teacher came to the school and had the kids make paper planes.  I love this about student teachers, they are fresh, they come with different ideas than what the usual classroom teacher brings and they see students with new ideas. I enjoy the variety that other teachers bring to a group of students and enjoy working with Student Teachers for these reasons (and more).

The boy found he was good at something, despite  a bully trying to pull him down (they later become friends) and he is encouraged to enter state championships in paper plan throwing.  The boy demonstrates a growth mindset as he works through many barriers including a father who is pining for his wife who died in a car accident a year earlier and is unable to get off the couch.  Then there's the cost of getting to Japan for the International Competition.  Next, he sprains his wrist and has to get over his fear of needles as acupuncture is the only way he can be ready to launch his plane.

He found himself in the 'pit' as he tried to 'fold' the perfect plane and the advice given was a little random yet connected in the same way.  His father showed him a video (yes video) of an Americas cup race where the shape of the keel revolutionised sailing.  When asking what he was to do with that he was told to 'find out'.  His teacher and grandfather had said similar when saying 'you have to work it out'.  None of these people gave him an answer, they may have had some ideas, but they didn't know and it is in this finding out and discovering that the learning process happens and he scrambles his way out of the pit.

He didn't 'google' how to make paper planes.  He studied things that fly. He studied flight in nature. He recorded his ideas, drawings, words, pictures in an exercise book.  The process was clear.  Yes he won. His father made it to see the final and he won the girl but despite the 'happy ending' it was seeing the learning process when you are passionate about something that has stuck with me and causing me to reflect on where I allow/ encourage student passions to drive the learning in the class I teach.

SOLO and Key Competencies on the Learning Wall

With some behaviour challenges affecting the learning opportunities and the way in which students learn and work together in the class there has been a need to focus on the kinds of behaviours we want all students to demonstrate.  I have been working on a couple of things in the class to negotiate a positive way forward for all of the creative and curious learners.  One of these is having a weekly Key Competency Focus and using a SOLO rubric that students use to work out where they are at on their journey with this KC focus.  It's not quite as simple as that but I will share some details later on. The other component of our programme is to increase the connections between the Early Learning Environments that these students have recently come from and to give more choice to all students - we talk about this as our 'Learning Wall'.  Both of these Teacher Inquiries have been influenced by what I saw on the Inspire Tour and what teachers shared following their visits to schools I didn't visit.

SOLO
I had always thought that SOLO was too complicated for Little Trekker/ Year 1 Students but I could see some possibilities when having professional dialogue with another Junior teacher.  This was timely as I had been grappling with ways to forefront the Key Competencies and expected behaviours of learners in a class of 22 students who are relatively new to school.

The 'Learning Wall'
Or, what I'm doing when I'm not with the teacher has come about to give students more choice in their school day.  There are a series of options that they put their name to (maximum of 6 students at any one thing) and that is where they work until they decide to finish up and move onto another choice.  At this stage they take their name and move it to another area of 'work' on the learning wall.

These two components are working hand in hand as I forefront a Key Competency each week - introducing and unpacking this on a Monday and reflecting on it at different times of the day as well as the students suggesting what they have enjoyed or what they would like to have as choices next week.

Isn't it Ironic? Don't you think?

I am on reflective mode as I think about what is happening in the class I teach and the possibilities. TED talks are great reflective prompts!

Sir Ken Robinson's TED Talk  'How to Escape Education's Death Valley' in 2013 starts with the idea of irony in the statement/ policy: "No Child Left Behind" as it's not working. He cites the numbers of students dropping out of high school.

For humans to prosper:

• Individuality - kids prosper best with a broad curriculum that celebrates their various talents. 10% of kids are being diagnosed as having ADHD, if we make kids to low grade clerical work - don't be surprised if they start to fidget.  Really they are suffering from 'childhood'.  Am I giving the students I teach a 'broad curriculum' or a 'bored curriculum'?

• Curiosity - if you can light the spark, they will learn without further assistance.  Teaching is a creative profession.  We mentor, stimulate, evoke and engage.  If students are not learning, then we are not teaching. What sparks have I lit this week?  When have I facilitated curiosity or let curiosity drive our curriculum?

• Creativity - human life is inherently creative.  Finland comes out on top with reading, writing and maths.  They don't obsess about disciplines but have a broad approach to curriculum.  Minimal standardised testing.  No drop out rate. What opportunities for creativity are in my class and programme?  

Creating a Climate of Possibility.

Three types of people, those who are:

1. immoveable
2. moveable - can see need for change
3. people who move and make things happen

Daily Practise Makes a Difference

The creative and curious students I am working with on their learning expeditions this year love the Activboard!

Over the last few years of doing NumPA within School Entry Assessments I have noticed that many students struggle with the 'before' and 'after' concept of numbers.  I'm not sure if this is more of a 'comprehension' (e.g. knowing automatically that 'before' is the number 1 less or 1 smaller) issue or lack of experience with numbers.  The number before seems particularly tricky.

With this 'gap' in mind I put together a morning flip chart that we could work through each day.  From students being able to drag their names onto our learning trail the next page looks at the days of the week in English and Te Reo Maori, we drag the days into the correct place and then discuss  what day it was yesterday and what day it will be tomorrow.

Ko te aha te ra inanahi?
Ko te aha te ra apopo?

Next, we talk about the weather.

The next page of our flip chart is where we explore our numbers.  The number is the day of the month e.g. 24 if it's the 24th of July.

I have been blown away by how many children have used this page as a springboard to not only think about and contribute to the numbers before and after but who have also taken this home and discussed it before school, talking with families what the date is and talking about the numbers that come 'just before' or  'just after'.

When we don't get our flip chart done (Activboard not keen on waking up, Skiing days or Friday's where CRT has been first thing) the students miss it and comment that they haven't done their 'numbers'!

Learning Assistants who worked in the class over Term 2 loved how simple this was and were also amazed at how the students who from one week to the next, through repitition of this activity each day, came to understand the terms before and after and who, one week, couldn't say the number before to the next week where they could easily identify the number just before.  

Amazing how a seemingly simple and possibly 'boring' activity can encourage learning in Mathematics for students when explored on a daily basis.  I think we might need to find a way of learning our basic facts, sight words and letter sounds this way too!

After 5 weeks at school when I go through JAM with students, they are more confident at saying the number before or after up to 10 and give it a good go up to 20!  A big part of this is daily practise but also about making the Language of Mathematics more explicit as is identified in THIS aspect of ALiM although this refers to other mathematical terms than 'before' and 'after'.

The language of mathematics is also one of the...

Ten principles of effective teaching of mathematics:

1. An ethic of care
2. Arranging for learning
3. Building on students’ thinking
4. Worthwhile mathematical tasks
5. Making connections
6. Assessment for learning
7. Mathematical communication
8. Mathematical language
9. Tools and representations
10. Teacher knowledge

The 'flip chart' also ties into many other principles of effective Mathematics teaching.

Our next steps with numbers before and after is to move onto numbers up to 100.