Tag Archives: Primary 1

Questioning – Kilmacolm’s innovative Blooming Blooms approach

Posted on by
1
Blooming Blooms

Blooming Blooms

In 2009 Katrina Little, the nursery teacher at Kilmacolm Nursery (which is part of Kilmacolm Primary School) using Bloom’s Taxonomy worked with parents to form Blooming Bloom Questions for familiar fairytales so that the children are introduced to the benefits of questioning (Innovative approaches). See Blooming Blooms example questions for Goldilocks and The Three Bears.

 

Colour Coded Blooms

Colour Coded Blooms

The questions are colour coded to represent the different  parts of Bloom’s Taxonomy and attached to the responding coloured flower and put into a pot which is inside the front of  each book (see above picture).

The questions are there to reinforce that the activitiy is not just about  reading the book but about gaining knowledge and understanding, applying, analysing and evaluating what has been heard and then creating new thoughts.  It is also about fully involving the parents in their children’s learning.

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jack and the Beanstalk

A visit to the nursery on Wednesday (17th February 2010) saw Katrina and the children in action. The story was Jack and the Beanstalk and I joined the children (a preschool group of 4 years old) as Katrina started to question them using the Blooming Blooms questions (copy of original Jack and the Beanstalk Questions).

The children seemed to enjoy answering the questions and often you could see the thought process going on.  In the applying section different children showed how they would climb the beanstalk. One boy talked about using an ice axe to help him climb which would indicate that somebody he knew used an ice axe to climb.

Unfortunately Katrina didn’t get through all of the questions as a group of younger children had finished their activity and had returned to the nursery. This disrupted the older childrens concentration a bit.

The books also go home with the children on a Friday so that the parents can be involved in the learning activity. Reports indicate that  parents  are enjoying using the Blooming Bloom questions and children enjoy them too.

This has lead to plans which are under way to introduce Blooming Blooms in Primary 1 linking it to their reading bookings and the Oxford Reading Tree. Those parents that were involved in the nursery project are said to be keen to be involved in the extension to Primary 1.

 

 My thanks to Mrs Katrina Little, colleagues in the nursery and children at Kilmacolm Nursery and the headteacher for allowing me into their world.

Information Literacy in Junior (Primary) 1

Posted on by
Reply

In December 2009 I spent the day in a Junior (Primary) 1 class as part of the work I’m doing for Learning and Teaching Scotland CfE Literacy Team – Real and Relevant – Information and Critical Literacy Skills for the 21st Century Learner’ (Early and First Level). The day was amazing with lots of information literacy activities based around some of the CfE learning outcomes and experiences. For example:

Finding and using information: Early Level

I listen or watch for useful or interesting information and I use this to make choices to learn new things. LIT 0.04a 

The children aged 5 years old listened to a chapter (chapter 4 I think) from a book about an owl finding out about night and darkness.

The book - The owl who was affraid of the dark The book – The owl who was affraid of the dark

They had to listened for a specific piece of information which they then had to remember. Questions were asked to ensure that they had heard and remembered it. Later on in the day they were each given a worksheet and had to draw a picture to represent what the chapter was all about. The teacher then went round each of them and asked them to complete a sentence with information they had heard. Some repeated the information exactly others put it into their own words. Whatever the child said the teacher transcribed it onto their worksheet.

Other examples of activities included:

  • selecting books in groups to find information about a particular night animal that the group had chosen i.e. a fox, badger, bat. Night animals and birds

With the help of the teacher reading the text the children decided on the 4 most important facts about the animal. Later each group told the rest of the class what they had found.

  • art of the week where they had to look at a picture of a piece of art Rodin’s Thinker and say what they thought it was about. It was amazing to see then looking at it, thinking about it and then giving their thoughts.

I could go on but will end there. My thanks to Mrs Lisa Bonar and her class at St Margaret’s School in Edinburgh for allowing me into their world. Discussions regrading the sort of things that would be useful to teachers regarding their own information literacy was also covered. It has certainly helped my thinking for the work ahead of me and I look forward to using this knowledge along with other experiences of Primary 2 and 3 to come in the new year.