Observation By Head And Deputy

[Guest]

I am being observed by our head and deputy on monday and the focus of their observation is questionning. For the lesson which they are observing will be a literacy activity on Jack and The Benstalk in which children will be making wanted posters in order to capture the giant. My main questioning will come in the ten minute input before we make the posters. I am really worried about the questionning part as i am not sure what type of questions i can ask any ideas will be very very gratefully received.

Thanks Lola

[apple]

is it questioning from the children or your questions to the children?

[Guest]

My questions to the children. The children are reception aged

[Susan]

Sorry Lola but why have you chosen this activity if you dont know what questions to ask?

 

You need to establish why the giant is wanted?

Why you need a poster?

What will happen?

What he looks like?

 

 

????

[Guest]

Hi Lola

Do you have to do this particular activity? Have you already told them what you will be doing? If you are not confident with the questions you need to ask can you change the activity?

If not have you got any wanted posters that you can look at? You could ask the children if they know what a wanted poster is? How will this help them find the giant? What will happen once he is found?

Linda

[Guest]

I have to do this activity as we hand our planning for the following week in on a thurs - they look at it and then choose a lesson to observe.

[Guest Wolfie]

I'm not sure whether this idea will be of any use at all - I got it on a maths course last week! - but before the children arrive for the activity could you"place" some giant footprints/shapes/outlines for the children to find/come across - leading to questions about who has left them, how did the giant get in, how are we going to find him so that he doesn't come in again, etc. etc. You should get some lovely language and ideas from that?

 

Maybe there could also be a note left from the giant, near the footprints, saying that he enjoyed coming to your school, which toys he liked playing with, things like that.

 

Of course you'd have to be careful that none of the children became frightened or alarmed by the giant's apparent visit!

 

Just an idea!

[JacquieL]

It is a bit difficult to help out with questions as i don't know how you have worked up to the point where you have decided to do a WANTED poster. A lot rather depends on the build up to this and what they have already done. It also depends on whether the focus is on 'teaching' asking questions, or being observed to see how you use questioning with your class to get them to think. If the latter you will be looking at using very open-ended questioning to get the responses you need.

For literacy I would think in terms of the questions what? who? where? why? when? I would probably have them large and laminated for refering to. This is quite a lot for one lesson and I would have build up to this point and been using these words, pointing them out to the children previously.

You need to build up to the question: Who is it we want? Why do we want the giant? Where is he to be found? What does he look like? When we have him what shall we do with him? The wanted poster is very much on the what does he look like and where will he be found? You could do a 'role-on the wall' which is when you draw a large outline of a man 'gingerbread-man style' and ask them questions about the giant. What is his face like? What kind of expression?(sad, fierce, sad, ugly etc) Does he have hair?How shall I draw it? What is he wearing? Etc. and fill it in as you go along with them describing him. You can write some words that they can use for their own posters for your focus groups.

Another way of approaching that is to have a very long piece of paper and actually draw the giant with the children, asking them questions as you go along. Then get them up when you have finised and talk about how he moves- get them to demonstrate.

Jack is the one who stole from the giant so is Jack the thief? Or is this the version where the giant stole them from Jack's Dad and Jack was stealing back what was rightfully his. Perhaps the wanted poster should actually be for Jack as he stole from the giant and then killed him! You could do a cicrle time on this issue with lots of questioning.

Another way you can deal with this is by deciding who wants the giant and why, then you could do a hot-seating of that character and encourage the children to ask him/her questions- these you could plan beforehand and have them written out on sentence strips if you wish if this is for literacy. You could hot-seat either Jack or Jack's mother in this role. Perhaps being the charater yourself.

hope this helps.

Best of luck.

[Marion]

How about doing mind mapping to see what the children know about giants and to produce some descriptive words for the wanted poster.