Saturday 29 September 2012

First New Pedagogy - Warm Ups

In June we began our change in school culture with 'Warm Ups'. [I must acknowledge that "Warm Ups" is a John Fleming term] After viewing Warm Ups in action at many schools we developed our own how-to guide, which continues to be refined as our brilliant teachers find more and more ways of presenting them.

Basically, Warm Ups are daily, fast-paced rote learning experiences. We use traditional flashcards, alphabet freizes and number boards as well as electronic whiteboards which are our favourite because the presentations can be shared and are easily updated.
Warm Ups are done at least twice a day (one for English and one for Maths) at the beginning of the session. They contain a variety of concepts and last for 5-15 minutes. Eg. Number facts, Counting patterns, Maths tables, Measurement facts,
 
School-wide, it is important to have common definitions for every concept. Eg. "Verbs are doing, having and being words." "A prime number has only 2 factors. One and itself."

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