Guest Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 (edited) I'm being observed for a job in reception and I was wondering if anyone had any great ideas for what I could do? I'm struggling because it's only a half hour slot and although they obviously can't sit for all that time finding a whole class carpet time and then some sort of adult led activity for afterwards is very difficult in such a short time. I can do it about anything, but I was thinking some sort of literacy/communication skills focus would be good. I need a whole class part (I was thinking 10 minutes, does this sound right to experienced reception teachers out there?) and then an adult led activity/good independent activities to engage the children. I have the beginnings of an idea but i was wondering if any of you creative people have any? I find it very difficult to come up with things at such short notice! Edited December 5, 2011 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 And your learning objective is? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 (edited) And your learning objective is? Good point! I wasn't given one though and since I don't know where the children are up to it's quite difficult to know what to focus on. I think my brain works backwards! My goal is for the children to mark make but without knowing their level I don't know whether the objective for any one child is to just make marks or to actually sound out, so I'm looking for an activity which I can then differentiate appropriately on the day. How would you expect to see this on a plan for a foundation stage observation? If I was doing it for my class I'd obviously be looking at next steps for each child, however not knowing these would you just expect to see a range of objectives on the plan to cover all possibilities? Or should I pick one of the more general objectives like "begins to write for different purposes" as this could cover any level of mark making from marks to words? The observation is more about looking at my interactions with the children and looking for the WOW factor in what I do than anything else but I want to make sure my plan is right as well. Edited December 5, 2011 by Guest Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susan Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 At the end of the first term in Reception, I would hope that most children were beginning to use their phonemic knowledge to make reasonable representations. I think you need to look at this more carefully to make sure you make an impact not just provide a lovely activity. I also think as you dont know the children or anything particularly about them then maybe you have the opportunity to do something more daring. It is nearly the end of term and a term with an exciting finish for littlies! Can you not do something a bit more festive? You need to think of what you like to deliver and what you feel most confident in. Look at the profile and at the EYFS docs and go from there? Good luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Thanks Susan. I was thinking of a festive activity but with communication/mark making objectives as I'm pretty sure the school has a big focus on these. Also I like delivering literacy based things! Someone on here had a lovely lesson idea about santa writing to the class to say he'd lost his reindeer and the children having to write to him to say they have found tracks in the school (which they would obviously have to look for first). I might go with something like that. The objective from the development age band (40-60 months) would be to write for different purposes and I could take a focus group and talk about how a letter is laid out. I could also really hone in on their writing skills at their level (which I would have to tune into as we were doing the activity). I really don't see how I can get any more specific with objectives for children I don't know. If someone has some words of wisdom or better ways to go with this I would love to hear them! I'm struggling to understand exactly where I'm going wrong without an example, I'm used to year one objectives! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Froglet Posted December 5, 2011 Share Posted December 5, 2011 Last job interview I did I had to do a half-hour activity for a group of 15 reception, Y1 and Y2 children with no objective specified. I started off by reading them QPootle5, then giving them each a lump of playdough and challenging them to make their own alien (the objective here was developing adventurous vocabulary) I have a load of 'body parts' for use with playdough. Then once the aliens were finished I split them in to groups - some writing words to describe their aliens, some writing sentences and some drawing an alien and telling me the sentence. Then we all came back together and wrote a couple of sentences as a group using the ideas they'd written. I picked communication/marking making as my main objectives and got good feedback on the lesson part of the interview. It was a relatively easy task to differentiate as I went along - even in half an hour it's possible to get a bit of a sense of what they can already do. It's not seasonal but something that engages them with lots of talk so they have something to write is good I think. Oh and before anyone asks I did check with the school first that they wouldn't object to playdough in the space we'd be using! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts