NQT observation - help please

[Guest]

Hi everyone,

 

I have my first NQT observation next week and i'm having a major mind blank. The topic is based loosely around Autumn and Harvest at the moment. I was considering reading a book with the whole Reception class as a basis and then divide into indoor/outdoor activities and C/I as normal. My first 2 ideas were:

 

Use the Little Red Hen as a starting point --> Read the story using the Pie Corbett actions getting the children to join in to the story (which is familiar to most the class) then divide the children up and I lead either an indoor or outdoor activity based on the book. However here is where I am getting stuck. I am trying to think of some 'WOW' activities.

 

Use the Leaf Man as a starting point which is a beautiful book about the leaves and Autumn and on each page the leaves make different things e.g. a man, a cow, chickens, vegetables etc. I have used it before and the children loved it. From this has activities based around Autumn for example: conker rolling outside (with guttering and talking about how to make them go faster), making animals, people, transport (whatever the children want) out of leaves using the book as inspiration. Not sure what else.

 

As its my first observation I just really want to impress the Head and make them glad that they chose me. I just need a little inspiration if you wouldn't mind. I would really appreciate it

 

Thank you in advance

[Guest]

There are some useful autumn resources on the nature detectives website, which have things to do with leaves, berries, etc and might give you some inspiration. I did The Little Red Hen with my Y2 placement class last year and we made bread, but that might be a longer term activity with a reception class. But could you look at an element of that in an outdoor activity such as grinding corn between two stones, or indoor kneading dough? I was trying to get across the work involved in making bread and why the Little Red Hen might feel she wanted help rather than just making it for the other animals. I hope it goes well for you - I've got my second observation as an NQT on phonics in the next couple of weeks.

[Guest]

you could make bread with the chidlren its really easy to make! and im sure ur observeer would love that. and then put instructions on how to make bread on an independent table.

 

For autumn you could make leaf necklaces, do leaf collecting and then sort them into colours

 

 

good luck

[catma]

Don't forget a WOW activity without new learning wouldn't be adequate.

You need to think clearly about the LO based on current assessments then the activities/context to deliver that may become clearer to you.

C x

Edited October 6, 2012 by catma

[Guest]

What about actually grinding some wheat into flour, we do this when we do little red hen with a pestle and mortar. We also make bread as a whole class. I do the little red hen over about 3 weeks with Lots of activities surrounding it. Re harvest I think that children have a very limited understanding of what harvest is unless they are from a farming family or one who grows stuff, We have a small veg patch which we cultivate with the children and at this time of year we harvest our veggies. We did this last week singing harvest related songs as we pulled up the veg and this week we are making veg soup. Re little red hen there are loads of resources out there eg from twinkl with story telling masks, play dough mats etc.

Deb

[bgfrancis]

I would think about what you have been focusing on recently and what your learning objectives have been. What is the learning you want to take place e.g. using particular vocabulary (heavier/ lighter would fit in nicely with cooking), counting a certain amount of objects (collecting autumn leaves on an outside environment walk and counting how many are in the basket - could extend to adding and subtracting with higher ability children), understanding how ICT can be used (acting out The Little Red Hen and filming each other/ using digital camera to take photographs of things they discover on an autumn walk)? Once you have that on your plan it should make it much easier to decide which activities you are going to do.

[Guest]

We did the little red hen last week and had a fabulous time. The children asked why we were singing harvest songs and what was harvest, oops! Which was our starting point...

.......We did the storytelling actions which they loved

We had a letter delivered by the Head first thing which started the day off......The poor little red hen was so exhausted that she left her two babies with us for the day (real red hens). They were fab, kept escaping so we had to build runs to keep them safe. One of the children kept hens so they were able to tell us how to hold them so we would be safe - not getting pecked, poohed on or carrying them so their wings didn't flap. They didn't have names either so we wrote our suggestions for them and clipped them to the run we had made. There run was a bit boring too so we made it lively by painting and making stuff to clip to it..... Realise we don't all have hens but I think a very similar idea would have been to have two hen toys and try the same... Lets face it their imagination is pretty limitless! Could occasionally move a toy out of the run to show it has ' escaped'. One of the children said to me ' I can see why the little red hen was tired after looking afterthese two hens', some wrote her letters which she answered in the morning. They were really engaged.

 

We developed this over the next few days looking at different things she might have to do on the farm( I wanted to see a bit more cooperation and working together with some of the children).. She wrote us a letter saying she was tired again and needed help watering her fields ( nobody would help her) we used drain pipes and water and I chalked ' fields' own the playground they needed to transport the water to.... The children then created a network of pipes and managed to transport the water to the chalked area.... Our water bill may be large after it but it was great- when one of the boys took it upon himself to change the field that needed watering and the pipe system had to be completely changed. Some were cross that he had ruined the first set of pipes but the negotiation that followed was fab!

We developed this the next day to moving grain ( marbles). Both days I was amazed to see the cooperation and the assertiveness of children engaged inthe task. Sharing marbles and cups as well as asking for goes and waiting turns...

We also talked about feelings and how it would feel to be left out and not helped by your friends ( this was quite an important point for a few of the children to thin on) we wrote letters to the animals inthe story telling them that the hen was sad and tired... Etc the red hen wrote back to the children and said they were all healing her now and we had been wonderful.

 

Plenty of wet clothes, escaping chickens it really engaged children....