27th June - evaluation

This was one of my favourite sessions.  We had done a similar session a few weeks ago and so tried similar activities.  Also I felt good today.  Sometimes you are just in the mood for dealing with people however adorable they are.  Really useful mood for a teacher.
We started off with a four-in-a-row coordinates game as a reminder of last week.  It was a good start and engaged all of them.  Two teams taking it in turns to place a coordinate and write it down.  L & N won the game but all got into strategic playing and blocking.  And were all clear on coordinates.

We went outside with them for a bit.  I had everyone standing around me.  I said I wanted all of the explorers to stand the same distance away from me as H.  They all then stood near H.  I said they should now spread out but stay the same distance from me.  They tried this and then I used a builders tape to check the distance of them all.  I swung round and corrected those whose lengths weren't right.
The key to this activity is for explorers to realise that the important aspect of a circle is the centre and the radius (didn't use the word)  I asked for the things that make a circle and they came up with the ideas quickly (measure immediately, centre took a little longer).

We then went inside and tried using a pair of compasses.  One of them had a compass and had used it but most had not.  They all got on well but mostly tried to hold too much of the compasses.  We went round and showed them how to hold the end and draw lightly.
They really got into just using the compasses so it was difficult to get there attention and look at different arrangements of circles.  I don't know if it was necessary to do that bit.
Maybe it would have been better to just look at different patterns and then discuss how they were made.  As it was, we looked at the language but didn't get on to the discussion.  Most kids had enough of their own ideas that they wanted to explore.  H had ago at doing a curve stitching pattern for a while but is still a bit shy to ask for help.  She has a really good go at everything though.
She got on well with constructing an perpendicular bisector.  The difficulty is choosing activities that have some meaning for children.  Games and patterns work well.  A goal like winning or building patterns with colours has a lot of meaning as it can be seen, experienced and often looks pretty.  What would be great is to find a way for them to communicate the meaning that it has for them.  It comes out in the discussions a little bit.
Still want to work on the passport idea.  Perhaps launch it after summer.  There should be pages for different countries/topics and in each one record examples of 3 activities from that topic and how the five values have been met.  Just need to figure out how broad the topics will be.
Another tracking measure could be activity led and create players, solvers and leaders of activities.  Maybe create badges for them.
Two more Saturday sessions to go.