Self Assessment

[Guest]

Hi

Would anyone mind sharing what they do to check reception childrens understanding or/and enjoyment of tasks. Have got children to show me a thumbs up /thumbs down,smiley faces and others not sure tell me again please etc.

 

I need to also think of some strategies to develop the performance of boys.

 

Sometimes I think even if I stood on my head and juggled with my feet - I still wouldn't maintain their attention ( I can't do that by the way!! but I would quickly learn if somebody tells me it works.)

 

Thanks

 

Tia

[Guest tinkerbell]

My reception boys loved working in the garden last year,anything physical.In fact one boy said last year after sieving soil and getting wet through 'that was quality! 'and put his thumbs up,totally un planned .It made me really happy it was one of those magic moments.

Tinkerbellx

[Guest]

Oh I've managed to post this in the wrong place how do i move it?

[Guest]

We also use our observations/questioning to check understanding and enjoyment of specific things. Is there a certain aspect of underachievement in boys you are looking at Tia - just asking because we did lots on 'reading' in our setting last year

[Guest]

Obviously not in the wrong place thanks for the reply tinkerbell.

We are trying to develop the use of our outdoor space hope to get many magic moments!

 

Our Fsp scores last year were lower across the board for boys so we feel we must try and understand why.

So any ideas you have Kermit would be great

[JacquieL]

I've moved it for you Tia as it may be better here.

[Susan]

Sparklebox has just posted some self assessment sheets.

 

You could print and laminate and then use with a whiteboard pen for children to record their assessment?

[Guest]

We found using 'gimmicks' worked well especially for our last years boys and this years. We found using their interests as a stimulus or backdrop to what we wanted them to achieve very successful e.g. dinosaurs, rockets, aliens, wizards - we had a soft toy wizard in our reading corner and transformed it into a castle; we sent home HFWs on different themed paper such as 'rocket words', 'dinosaur words'. They also loved an element of competition and loved stickers or having stamper charts where we had 'races' weekly to see who could, for example, score the most 'goals', whose flying saucer could fly the furthest,etc. A few years ago I had a class of 35 with only 7 girls so had to adopt these tactics for the whole class to motivate the boys I had at the time. Basically, I found that, on the whole, the boys liked to know where they stood and what they needed to do next...obviously phrased in the right way. Hope these ideas help, obviously no 2 classes are the same and different ideas work for different children/settings -good luck!

[Running Bunny]

As far as getting and maintaining interest with boys/girls, I would agree with Kermit - find out what they are interested in and then introduce maths, language, emergent writing etc into this. When I was at nursery we had mark making in the construction area and the boys loved drawing plans, creating maps and plans for their work.

 

With regards to checking if children like an activity or area. I have done 'target' evaluations where you draw a smiley face in the middle, then draw three more circles around that to make an archery target picture with a sad face on the edge. Give the dhildren sticky dots and get them to put the dots near the middle if they like something and progress out to the edge if they didn't like it. A simpler version of this is a chart with a smiley face on one side and a sad face on the other and use the sticky dots in two columns (depends on the age of the children)

[Guest]

Thank you all appreciate the ideas will be trying them asap

and thanks Jacquie L for moving my post i really must get to grips with posting

[Marion]

As Tinkerbell already said working outdoor certainly inspired our boys last year

[Guest]

We take our children across to the woods alot... the boys love that... making dens and tree houses, climbing trees, lots of make believe play and wild games. Parts of it have been left purposefully over grown to encourage them to take risks and explore. All the children love it, but I know the boys get sooo much out of it. Every week we have different focuses to encourage them to use different senses and look at things in different ways... I wouldn't be without the woods now!

 

Also, we plan in a lot of literacy focuses for boys. (Toy Story, Super Hero Week, Finding Nemo, Traction Man, etc etc)

 

I think being a boy myself helps too

[Marion]

Last year we had a huge tent outdoors and the boys loved taking books and writing materials in there with torches

 

Today we took the large plastic bricks outdoors and built Santa's sleigh from this the boys decided we needed reindeer so the rocking horse was heaved outside too and antlers made and stuck on. We found some Santa hats in the dressing up box and they decided they needed clipboards and pens to make lists........naughty and nice children........then they asked everyone they could find what they would like for Christmas and wrote it all down too. Not bad for a physical focus activity

Edited December 11, 2006 by Marion

[Guest]

Hi Tia

 

At the end of each half term topic I do an evaluation sheet for each child. Basically about 6 activities we've covered over the topic with choice of 3 smiley faces - brilliant, okay and didn't like. My learning assistant and myself sit down 1-1 with each child and we talk about the statements. children colour in the smiley face they feel represents how they worked/enjoyed the activity and we record any comments on the sheet. This is then stuck in their Record of Achievement which will form their end of year report (fed up with completing the FSP booklet!!!). It's amazing the insight we get into what the children have enjoyed doing and what they can remember. Very time consuming - takes about a couple of days to complete for 30 children but very worthwhile.

 

Sandra

[Guest]

Hi all, my name is John.

 

As a creative collaborator (education-based artist) who works mainly in pre-school and foundation settings, I try to maintain a partnership approach to learning wherein the educators, the children and I all negotiate what we are going to do before we begin. As an approach, because the children have had quality input regarding what they intend to do - this almost ensures that they will enjoy whatever they engage in.

 

In terms of how this fits-in with desirable learning outcomes, the educator and I spend time (5 or 10 minutes - every couple of hours) going through what we have observed and learned from our interaction with the children. This allows the educator to make necessary links between the children's experiences and the curricula. During these assessment periods, I act as a kind of interpreter of children's creative expressions, helping the educators to make these necessary links.

 

When gauging the efficacy of what we are doing in terms of whether the children are enjoying and learning, I find that this little and often approach is very helpful because it is hard to assess children's engagement on a day to day basis, let alone term by term. But the best thing about it is that you are documenting as you go, so it is of the moment, relevant to the child and worthwhile for practitioners: the documentation is your evidence that the children are enjoying themselves.

 

Hope this posting is ok. I am always mindful that as an artist, my perspective does not have to operate under the pressures that educators have to navigate, but I have been working closely with Manchester Education Partnership for several years now, and they are always pulling me into training sessions to share my approach with educators - so there must be something in it.

 

Have a great Christmas folks, John.

[Guest]

Welcome to the forum Sandra and John. Thanks for your postings - it's always nice to hear other people's approaches. And I quite agree with you, John, there is nothing more motivating for the children than getting their own input and planning from the children's responses.

[Susan]

Hi Sandra and John and welcome!

Good to have you both on board.

[JacquieL]

Hello to you both- lovely to have you here and look forward to more postings

[Guest]

I have just bought a fantastic abacus from Habitat, to encourage boys to engage in a wider range of maths activities. The abacus does not go up to 100 (TO 60 ONLY), BUT, each item on the abacus is a different vehicle!

We got it as a class Christmas present and the gasps of delight as we opened it made me feel we made the correct choice!

[Guest]

Hi Jennim,

 

Speaking of capturing boys interests, I recently completed a project with a nursery class where the teacher wanted to engage the boys in maths activities. So I brought in loads of (new) waste pipes and connectors of various angles. The waste pipes I speak of are the white ones that you would find under any sink. They are fairly inexpensive and can be purchased from any plumbers' outlet, builders' merchants, or B&Q etc.

 

While the teacher was excited that the boys would love playing with the pipes, she wasn't too convinced that we could cover maths as part of the activity... To cut to the point; the boys (and girls) and I 'measured' the pipes with measuring tapes; cut them in 'different lengths' (with the supervised use of hack-saws) , joined them together at 'different angles', 'measured' and weighed quantities of water to pass through the pipes, 'timed' how long it took for the water to pass through, 'added' more lengths of pipe and repeated the timing of water passing through to record the time 'difference'.

 

Resultantly, we measured; looked at 90 and 45 degree angles, measured and weighed volumes of water, timed the water flow and reinforced the adding and timing aspects by attaching more pipes and re-timing the water flow. Follow-up visits to the setting have shown that the boys have continued to use this equipment to full effect.

 

Teacher's feedback: "They're all builders now and I have built on this interest by having them measure the things they make during 'big-block work'. I can see maths in everything; I even have the children organising themselves into different task groups like a measuring group, timing, weighing and so on. Recalling what they learn comes really natural to them."

 

I have met very few boys who won't engage with real-world materials. I try to use them as often as I can because it makes learning experiential. For me, when children are constructing, they are constructing meaning. I think that's why the pre-schools and infant-toddler centres in Reggio Emilia, Italy are hailed as exemplars in this regard; they use real-world; recycled and found objects as much at they can. Of course we've been doing it for decades also, but our increasingly litigious culture often puts educators off - and they end up relying almost exclusively on given materials to engage children; some of which are great, but most simply don't have the same excitement factor as real-world resources. I think that, ultimately, if we have to 'work hard' to get children interested in a subject area like maths, the whole enterprise is that much more difficult for us and less effective for the children. I'm such an idealist.

 

I love your abacus though Jennim, it sounds like fun; toys that replace the beads will surely have a lasting and meaningful value to your little ones. Good luck with everything for the New Year.

 

Bye for now, John.

Edited December 26, 2006 by Guest

[Guest]

Hi welcome from me too, Sandra and John.

 

John, B&Q is one of my favourite places to go to get items that are meant for one thing but can be used for so many other things at preschool.

 

We actually made our divider screens from the pipes you mention, 4 x 2 foot rectangles with a cloth pillowcase type cover, clipped together with the pipe clips.

 

Large carpet tubes are also good for exploration of travel & speed, slower when supported straight and faster when tipped at a higher angle etc. Drainpipes are good to enable angles to be added too.

 

We were recently fortunate to get a large bag of offcuts of large cardboard tubes, they have replaced our stickle bricks as alternate construction materials, the children build the discs into towers, use them with paint for printing, lay them in a line to make rollers, place a board on top to carry other items. They even made a conveyor belt ( with no adult direction) to 'deliver' the groceries past the till in the shop roleplay.

 

ooh, I think I'm having preschool withdrawal symptoms.

 

Role on ( excuse the pun) new term.

 

Peggy

[Marion]

hi John and Sandra and welcome to the forum