Literacy Mystery Bus Tour

Last Thursday afternoon just over 100 Northland teachers participated in a literacy mystery bus tour. The first stop was our school - Morningside School. Adam and I had afternoon tea, while everyone wandered through the classes. 

There has been a lot of talk lately around different learning spaces. If you are interested in finding out more about the caves, campfires and watering hole spaces Adam is the person to see. At the start of the term the children redesigned their learning environment, using the concept of cave, campfire and watering hole spaces. Adam does a fantastic job of enabling his year 2 and 3 class to have a lot of student voice. Explanations of the different spaces are also visually displayed throughout his classroom. 

Our next stop was Whangarei Intermediate School. We were warmly greeted by Hayley and then set off to explore the classrooms that were open. High quality examples of children's writing were on display and rich literacy centres were set up that encouraged independent learning. I also took quite a liking to the hand made puppets. This would be a great idea for oral language! Will have to add it to my 'to do' list. 

Our last stop was St Francis Xavier School. All of their classrooms were extremely colourful and rich with literacy. I loved Tracey Alison's 'little things we celebrate' board as well as how her groups are visually displayed in such a creative way. The photo frames have all been painted, with coloured paper inserted into the frame. You can then easily write on the glass using a whiteboard marker. 

Awesome display about how to cook up great writing. Simple step by step instructions with lots of visual prompts. 

Another colourful learning environment that really caught my eye. 

I know I wasn't supposed to be looking for art ideas, but couldn't resist taking a photo of these cute owls! 

If you missed out on the literacy bus tour this year I would highly recommend participating next year. It's a great way to get into other classrooms, meet other teachers and take some snapshots of inspirational ideas. It was a very relaxed and enjoyable evening, with no shortage of pizzas for dinner! Thank you to everyone who helped to organise such an amazing event. We need to do this more often. If you know who's classrooms any of these photos are from please let me know so that I can credit them. 

Smidgens that I will take away 

• To make my classroom displays more literacy rich. 
• Provide more examples of quality writing for my children. 
• Photo frames and whiteboard markers for groups. This would be a great for our fluid groupings! 
• Definitions of caves, campfires and watering holes visually displayed around the room. Like the idea of also including what they could be used for. 
• Handmade sock puppets for oral language. 
• Oh and to add owl art to my 'to do' list :)