Reflection
I think that this lesson went really well. The students were really engaged and wanted to share all of the things that they did on Rotoroa Island. I have found that having an overall topic focus for reading and writing has been beneficial for my students as they are exposed to the vocabulary about it all week and this then starts to come out in their writing. Looking at this lesson it has been really great to reflect on how far these students have come in their writing this year. I loved how much detail that the students were adding. We have been working on thinking about the audience as we are writing which I can see that the students have taken onboard and started to use more interesting and topical vocabulary to add detail. Another thing that I have done this year with my writing groups is to keep these the same as my reading groups which has been really beneficial as I have found that the students have more opportunity and exposure to topic specific vocabulary in what they are reading and can then transfer this into their writing. It also adds an extra challenge that this group of students have really loved this year.
Things to note
This lesson was filmed when covid restrictions were lifted so mask wearing is now personal choice for the students and teachers, you will see that some of my students still choose to wear masks during class time and some choose not to. I filmed this lesson with two of my writing groups the BFG group and the James group so there are a mixture of students from the two groups that have shared their learning. I have found it really challenging with my camera angles when working with the students on our class mat so there are some shots where the students are cut out. Unfortunately this is something that I definitely need to work on and find ways around this.
