T is for Targeting, Time and Tapestry

I don't know why this post has suddenly decided to appear on Wednesday rather than Thursday - I will try to sort it out if I can!!

Targets - For some children there are so many gaps in their learning that it necessary to focus on just a few at a time to stop everyone becoming overwhelmed.  Individual Education Plans (I.E.P.s) are a good way to let everyone know what these targets will be over the next 6 weeks and allow opportunities for extra learning sessions, differentiation to be enabled and progress plotted.

The most important factor is that the student sets or at least chooses their targets whenever possible as it is far easier to achieve goals if you are interested and have a stake in them!!  I have also found in the past that being able to teach small groups also allows more precision teaching of lessons that can take into account personal targets for each child or in some cases where children may have similar targets for learning a particular thing - e.g. number bonds to 10 - blocks of lessons can be tailored that give plenty of repetition and access to new ways at looking at something.

Some children like to have their targets printed on separate pieces of card clipped on a key ring that they can then have on their desk to show which target they are working on - this helps others to focus on that too (e.g. teacher & support staff)

What are your views on how targets can be achieved?  Or how they are set?

Time - I often wish that I had more time to share with my students (when I was a full time classroom teacher home time often over ran because as a class we were doing something we didn't want to stop - although I was always careful if it was raining - don't want soggy parents!!) because I rarely have children that do not want to have that more individual teaching, or chance to talk or simply be in someone's company.  

Another useful tool when helping children who are struggling with emotive issues is Time Out - this allows a child to leave the learning zone and retire to their own special place - often to calm down - and then they can return when they are ready to learn again.  This is of course difficult to manage if you are a single teacher in a classroom and are still expected to ensure that that particular child's learning of the lesson is not affected!!  It works far better if there are additional adults in class who can give the extra support needed.

Tapestry - I love skeins of tapestry wool - they come in so many beautiful colours and feel soft and bouncy in your hand :)  I have had a go at various tapestry kits including this one based on a Mary Queen of Scots coin:

but one of the easiest and therefore quite relaxing ones to do was using a bargello stitch - 

As you can see the stitch just goes top to bottom and once you have your first line established the rest just fits in.

How has anyone else got on with using tapestry wool and what did you make?

T is for Time freebie - I have quite a few games to buy with a learning to tell the time theme on TpT but my freebie combines language learning with starting to tell the time in French :)