Beyond a Blackboard

This term I have sought to facilitate discussion between my learners and to step out of group lessons so that they are student led. I have utilized strategies such as reciprocal reading, maths as problem solving and circle time to encourage this. I have also highlighted the importance to work with others during our class PB4L lessons. Team Building Sport Games Within these PB4L lessons, I have facilitated a number of activities to foster team building. We played team building sports games, technology challenges and the famous toothpaste activity. One of the most engaging and successful activities that the class has participated in has been Breakout Edu . A PB4L Challenge The students were respectful, supportive, collaborative and engaged throughout the game, which was very rewarding to observe. Part of this success could be due to the amount of focus that we have put into team building in the past, but the Breakout had my students captivated and they have requested t...

To start the term off with a bang,  Room 7 took part in a 'Breakout' . This meant that the students had to solve a series of clues in order to unlock a number of locks that were attached to a treasure chest. I first found out about Breakout Edu at Sparkshop ,  where Angela Lee facilitated a Breakout for the educators.  I thoroughly enjoyed this session and had been waiting to use this ever since. As Breakout can be used in any curricula area, I decided to use mine to recap some of our mathematics learning from term two. I modified an established game; 'The Mathematicians Code' by Jeff Hennigar, so that it could be used by my whole class. I ended up using 6 locks on my main box and a smaller locked box which contained some clues. To start off,  I presented the students with a picture frame that contained a picture of a Pythagorean tree. Some of the students realised that their had to be something more to this picture, and found a secret note hidden insid...