Bricks Club
Bricks Club is a social skills programme where students work together to build Lego® models. Students develop social skills such as taking turns, using manners and practising social interactions.
There are three roles. The engineer reads the instructions and passes these on to the supplier. The supplier gathers the blocks to give to the builder. The builder receives the blocks and instructions from the engineer and then builds the Lego® creation.
Each student stays in a role for 5-10 minutes and then rotates to another role. A Bricks Club session continues until all group members have had a turn at each roll. The build takes as many sessions as necessary to get it completed. Rules are practised and enforced to ensure everyone has a positive experience.
Building is fun. My favourite is the builder because I like to build with the lego.
Learning through Talk
Oral language is a crucial building block for communication. Communication, including speech, language, social interactions, and literacy skills, develops over time.
The ‘Learning through Talk’ programme was developed to assist students with their oral language skills. It uses the Ministry of Education Ready to Read readers in each session. The teacher introduces the story, encourages discussion about the book's cover, and gets ideas from the students about what they think the story might be about.
The teacher offers four ideas and asks one open-ended question about each picture, pausing for the students to gather thoughts, offer opinions and add to the group conversation as the book progresses. The story is then read to the students. The teacher regularly asks students to recall the story’s first, middle and last events.
Quick 60 is a reading and writing programme providing additional support in small groups.
Quick 60 helps reading and writing skills. It includes sight words that the students take home to practise. I have been facilitating the programme for three years now. Students enjoy it, and I can see that they feel more confident about their reading and writing.
We read books. We write about the book. Mostly I like writing because it is fun and helps me learn
Education has no beginning and no end. It ebbs and flows and is ever-changing. As an educator, it is my responsibility to instill a love of learning and an ability to adapt to an ever-changing world.
My teaching journey started at 40 when I retrained as a teacher after a career in journalism and many years as a stay-at-home mother. When we guide our students to be lifelong learners, we send them towards their next journey well-prepared for whatever life brings.
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