How to Cope with Early Finishers!!

Sometimes the last thing you want to hear 10 minutes into a task is 'Teacher, I'm finished!' only to see that they have put in a great effort and are indeed finished.

I always try to keep them occupied and busy, particularly as if I am teaching a multigrade class. The following are strategies I use to keep children challenged in a meaningful way (I don't see the point in giving them 20 more of the same Maths sums or 10 more sentences in English. Instead I prefer to give them critical thinking tasks or problem solving tasks).

1. DEAR Time (Drop Everything and Read)
Encourage the children to have a library book on their tables always and they can pick them up as soon as they are finished a piece of work.

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2. Free Writing
Allow them to have a copy where they can write without any guidance. It allows them to be creative for themselves. While I always monitor these copies, I don't correct them to allow the child to take ownership of their writing. I usually do this as a whole class activity 3 times per week for 10 minutes. Last year, children surprised me by practicing genres we had previously explored, writing poetry and even pieces as Gaeilge!

3. Busy Bee Area
Depending on the class I have I either make a Busy Bee Area or a Busy Bee Booklet for the children. Included in this area are brainteasers, Sudokus, book review templates and tasks to challenge the children. They automatically go to this area/booklet when they have completed their work.  Take a look at the link here if you would like to set one up in your classroom.

4. Boggle/Target Numbers
We might have a boggle board in our room and the children have a weekly challenge to make as many words as possible.
A weekly/daily target number which they have to make with a specific set of numbers or make that number using as many operations as possible. Click on the image below to find a free outline to download.

5. Computer tasks
Whether it's typing an article for the school blog, writing up an excellent piece of work they have previously completed or doing Interactive Maths games, it's great to use the ICT facilities that you have (hopefully!) in your room.

First Steps Writing (Narrative Writing)

Last year, our school undertook English Writing as an area of SSE (School Self Evaluation). We decided to take on the First Steps Approach to Writing. It breaks each genre down into a seven step approach which you build upon over seven-eight weeks. I felt that I really improved my teaching of English Writing as it was a more structured approach that allowed the children to progress steadily over the term. The difference in their initial draft and their final sample at the end of the 7-8 weeks was remarkable!

Available here

The writing genre book is available from PDST here and it incorporates the ideas of First Steps Writing.

This term, my class is focusing on Narrative Writing. And we are going right back to basics! We started looking at characters in our weekly story and discussing their traits. In particular, we have worked a lot on showing character traits throughout our writing rather than just stating them.

Next we began to work more on settings and how important it is to set a clear picture in the mind of the reader.
Both character and setting worksheets are available here.

Only then did we move on to planning the 'skeleton' of a story using story planners.

Story planner available here

At the end of the Narrative Writing genre, each child will have a few samples of their own narrative writing. they will select the piece their are particularly proud of and I will bind them all together as a booklet to add to our class library.

Assessment

Each child self assesses their work to identify areas they did well and aspects they could work on next time.  Free checklists are available here.

1916 Easter Rising Book Review

I just received this book from Poolbeg, which I plan on using this academic year for the 100th Anniversary of the Easter Rising.  It is a nice way to extend their knowledge of the Rising in Ireland at the time through the diary of a twelve year old girl living in Dublin.  It is a well written book with many snippets of humour to engage the students and the topic will probably engage even the most reluctant reader! It is certainly worth investing in a few copies for your class library or doing collectively as a class novel.

I would recommend the book for a good 5th class or 6th Class as the vocabulary is quite challenging. It could also be used with 1st years in Secondary School. Included in the book are a list of useful links and resources to explore the Easter Rising further.  It also has a useful glossary of groups and individuals involved in the Rising.

It has huge scope for integration with many subjects areas. I have listed a few ideas below.

English: 

-Diary Entries from the perspective of other characters in the story
-Create newspaper articles during the week of the Rising.
-Book Review of the Novel
-Persuasive Writing (E.g. The Irish were right to fight for their independence)

Drama:

-Create improvisations based on the characters in the book
-Use of conscience alleys to help the characters make difficult decisions
-Hot seat characters from the book and ask them a variety of questions
-Thought track characters from the story at different times throughout novel

History:

-1916 Rising
-World War I in Europe
-Historical Figures (Pearse, Connolly etc.)
-Compare Dublin now and then
-Create a timeline of the events of the Easter Rising

Geography:

-Mapwork based on landmarks mentioned in the story
-Scoilnet maps to identify landmarks from story
-Dublin City (Ireland)

Art:

-Design a new front cover for the book

-Choose your favourite scene from the book and draw it

-create a movie reel of the main scenes from the book

Science:

-Inventor Thomas Edison (is mentioned in the story)

Music:

-learn words to Amhrán na bhFiann
-learn tin whistle tune to Amhrán na bhFiann

Project Work

-Assign a specific aspect of the Rising for the children to research
Examples include:
*Research a person involved in the 1916 Rising
*Research the landmarks involved in the 1916 Rising
*Write a different ending to the story
*Write a review of the book
*Write a letter to the author outlining your recommendations (likes/dislikes of the story)