Spag (spelling, punctuation and grammar)

[Guest]

Hi I'm in a school based nursery , our focus for our next whole school obs by the head is SPAG I'm really stumped what to do with 3/ 4 year olds on this as so any ideas would be greatly appreciated

Thanks in advance

[lashes2508]

Seriously !

[Guest]

Yes thinking of asking her what she thinks it should look like in the nursery?

Edited January 28, 2015 by hudsod03

[Juliajess]

LOL !

[Guest]

Quite!

However, deep breath and...

in Year R we borrowed the de Bono hats idea and have a different colour for types of words - so if we're naming things we put a green card in the middle of the group, if we're describing then it's a blue card. I don't use the words noun and adjective except in passing,

The same colour cards are used throughout the school to support grammar teaching.

Do you have an agreed school system you could use, then maybe do a describing focus as that fits most easily with our UW or literacy?

[Guest]

Hmmm we have a sentence train used across the school perhaps I could incorporate this alongside some key words from a story such as the gruffalo with some acting out!

Food for thought thank you

[Froglet]

Having been looking at some of the SPAG practice papers our Y6 have just done (alongside a slightly despairing Y6 teacher!) Some of the things they were getting wrong were editing sentences to ensure subject/verb agreement in terms of number and gender. It was clear that they couldn't do it because their spoken language was that way. So... maybe some kind of speaking/listening activity where they had to find the right picture to match an oral sentence e.g. I have food for the cats - do you cover up the single cat picture or the one with lots on?

Does that make any sense? Not explaining very well but you could make a game of some kind out of something like that I would think?

[Cait]

Could you use SATPIN to see what words you can spell? Or think of words that start with those letters and make a silly sentence, like silly soup?

[Guest]

Thank you

[Mouseketeer]

Lol when I saw the title I thought you meant staff ....some of mine certainly need some 'spag'

[Stargrower]

Lol when I saw the title I thought you meant staff ....some of mine certainly need some 'spag'

Oh mine too! That's why Tapestry takes me so long...edit, edit, edit!

[mundia]

I agree with froglet about making the focus on speaking and listening. Children can't write correct grammar and punctuation if they can't speak it eg using intonation, pauses and speaking in sentences. Role play stories would be one way to get intonation and repeated phrasing.

Good idea to ask your senior managers what they would anticipate seeing in a nursery class with this focus.

[Guest]

Lol when I saw the title I thought you meant staff ....some of mine certainly need some 'spag'

Haha, me too. I was fully about to post about being a grammar nazi.

 

And maybe with 3/4 year olds you'd be looking more at recognising print? The idea that they know words have a meaning or showing interest in letters that they know.