#poundlandpedagogy

I have recently been reading lots of tweets with the hashtag #poundlandpedagogy. The phenomenon seems to have been started my @WallaceIsabella and there are loads of teachers out there now contributing to the discussion.

Isabella's original work on #poundlandpedagogy can be read in this article http://osiriseducational.co.uk/osirisblog/poundstore-pedagogy-inspiration-in-the-aisles

#poundlandpedagogy is where teachers use the items/objects cheaply available in stores like 'Poundland' and 'Pound World' etc in their classrooms to improve teaching and learning. Coming up with innovative ways to use the 'everyday' items you find in these stores.

There are already some brilliant ideas out there as to how teachers are using these items in their classrooms. Some fantastic examples are:

(@ASTsupportAAli) Bulmershe School Toolkit Blog - http://bulmershetoolkit.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/cheap-shops-brilliant-lessons.html#!/2013/03/cheap-shops-brilliant-lessons.html

Dave Cookson's (@seatonburnDCO) blog where he regularly updates what he is using in his classroom under  the 'Technique a Week' heading - http://seatonburndco.wordpress.com/technique-a-week/

& most recently (inspired by the above) Mandy Lawson's (@seatonburnALA) new blog where she outlines how she plans to use #poundlandpedagogy in her classroom after the Easter break - http://seatonburnala.blogspot.co.uk/#!/2013/03/inspired-by-poundland-pedagogy-chat-on.html

There are plenty of other teachers contributing to and sharing their #poundlandpedagogy and they can be found by following the #poundlandpedagogy (click on this link) on Twitter! Some of my favourites so far include @fimturner's haul, & @ldufty's store eggs and reusable keyboard keys!

So, having been inspired and excited by the prospect of getting some cheap products and thinking of ways I can use these in my classroom I ventured into town today...

I went to 'Pound World' as it was the 1st one I came by, in preparation I also looked at the 'Poundland' website to see what sorts of items I would be likely to come across. You can check out both of their sites at http://poundworld.net/ and http://www.poundland.co.uk/.

I was amazed at how many things there are in these shops that you can use. The whole time I was in the shop my mind was going mental trying to think of ways to incorporate each item into my lesson. I went down each and every aisle searching for bargains to use. I eventually dragged myself away from the store with the following items to get me started this half of term...

 'Memo Cube' aka 'Post-it' notes! I already use these a lot in my lessons using my 'Tweets Plenary'. I also get my form group to write their examples using our school's 'Word of the Week' on these. I have got some more ideas to use these involving a rope ladder, but I'll post on that another time!

 Next up...balls of string. Being a Mathematics teacher these naturally come into play when looking at circumferences of circles, investigating and discovering Pi and looking at length etc. I have also used these this year for a 'probability washing line' and most recently to try and keep my garden fence from falling over! I plan to use these in some sort of 'washing line' display and, again, will post on this in due course.

 A great find here - masking tape! I get regular e-mails from Pivotal Education's Ellie suggesting ideas for 'Active Maths' lessons. One of these suggestions was to create a 'magic square' grid on your classroom floor, give students the numbers to form the magic square and then get them to arrange themselves in the grid so that all the rows, columns and diagonals sum to the same number! This is what I'll do with this initially and I'll post when it's done!

Balloons! I love using these in lessons and used them in one of my termly assessments last year on my GTP. I put a little piece of paper in each of about 12 balloons, 4 lots of 3 differently coloured balloons (differentiated). In a certain coloured balloon would therefore be a 'clue/hint' for the lesson. The students were then encouraged to, if needed, come to the front and [very safely] pop the balloon they required to get that clue for the lesson. i haven't used this yet this year and so these will come in handy to revive this strategy I have used previously...blog post to follow!

Lastly, and my favourite, most awesome, find of the day goes to...6 hula hoops (each costing £1)! Now, I have been on the look out for these since I read Bruno Reddy's (@MrReddymaths) blog post on using hula hoops to help his students revise the circle theorems. This is exactly what I intend to do with these and my Y10 class. I will, perhaps, use the string here too. There will be an epic blog post to follow this lesson, when it is done - watch this space!

 

As you can tell from the above, I intend to write an individual post, including pics, of how I have incorporated each of my purchases into my lessons and what effect they had on the learning of my students. I will try to do one of these posts a week from now until the half-term week and then hopefully go shopping again over half-term (if not before) to hunt around for some more ideas. I'm already on the hunt for some eggs and recycled keyboards in order to try out @ldufty's idea!

 

More to come... follow the #poundlandpedagogy for more ideas that are already in action!