Christmas is Coming 2: A Thought For The Day

Using Podium for students to hear their internal voice, might be a powerful use for the tool in guided reading time. I am already beginning to see the benefits of using Podium to help my year 3 students recognise the importance of expression when reading aloud, but a lovely idea I think at this time of year, would be for older students to engage either with bible stories, or familiar and Traditional Christmas tales. Choosing stories that perhaps give a particular message and recording these to share, as either a "thought for the day," type program or series, or that might be used by younger students on the classroom PC as a listening centre. Perhaps by including the PC or teacher laptop as one of the Guided Reading options, students could share a book or text alongside an older students performance, enabling younger or emergent readers to hear a model of how the text can be read.

Hearing Thoughts for the day, short expressions about the things I like or look forward to about Christmas, memories of previous Christmases or even colleagues and community members recording their thoughts and memories about Christmas when they were a child, would make powerful tools for thinking about what this festival means to different people, and how it has changed over time, enabling and supporting discussions about the significance and meaning of the festival. I have to admit to being curious too, about how a public might react to primary school students sharing Christmas messages through this type of public broadcast, in tandem with those we often hear from Politicians, religious figures and celebrities at this time of year.