TA interview. Short task for year 4?

[Rockbird]

Yikes! Got an interview which I didn't expect to get. I have some experience with year 1 but not year 4 and I have to prepare a 10 minute session for a small group of children. I would be so grateful for any ideas.

Any subject? Maybe do something on place value which is pretty universal across the age groups?
Rolling 3/4 dice to make a number and putting the numbers on a place value chart?
Times table games?

Really what they will be looking at is how you interact with the children so something that allows lots of conversation. Have they given you any direction or is it free for you to decide? Maybe just take an interesting picture and get them to tell you the story? Make sure you ask the children their names and try and use them and make sure the conversation is friendly encourage them all to contribute.

Thanks, this is so helpful. They've said it's to see how I interact with the children and can be on any area of the curriculum. Maximum 10 minutes. One thing I know I'm good at is interacting with children so I'm not worried about that so much as making sure I can present an interesting activity.

How about giving one child a picture of random shapes and getting them to describe it to the others, the others have to draw it. The winner becomes the describer etc?

I did think about something like times table bingo but concerned that it'll be to difficult to do inside 10 minutes.

Have you got any jenga at home? To make a timestable jenga?
As in write a times table question on one side of the piece that they have to answer when they pick it out.

Year 4-

Ok, so keep it simple! Consider and SEN or EAL children and think about what visual/additional resources you might need?

What about some sort of classification exercise where you give them an empty bag and they have to choose 10 items they need for a sleep over. Talk pair share type activity then rate rank the items. You can bring in some real items to get them chatting. Like an alarm clock or some pjs. Then maybe a comforter.
Target language would be persuasive language- I need/want/must have .... because.... x is important to me because....

Then get them to write the ideal sleepover bag items as like a handy guide or that would be you’re follow on activity.

Pictures of simple things, ball etc. Create basic sentence individually or with partner if lower ability on whiteboards and model a sentence first. Children then share with the group. Uplevel their sentences together and add in adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, improve punctuation etc - one at a time. If lower ability then capital letters, full stops, adjectives. Share with group their sentences. Model and uplevel at each stage. Probably be a mid range group though for an interview. Good luck!

Also at the end, ask children to underline or share with their partner what their best adjective or adverb was as a bit of self assessment

Play beat the teacher! Divide a chart into 1000s 100s 10s 1s. Children against you. Roll dice and the children decide where the number goes in the chart. The aim is to make the biggest number. Then you roll and make your choice. Then the children. Get them to reason why they place the number where they do. Keep going till someone wins.
Next round swap it to make the smallest number. Does the reasoning change?
Ask questions like does it matter who rolls first?

Thanks so much, some great ideas. Starting to panic now 😩 but it'll be fine... I think!

Make sure you give the kids a bit of feedback at the end; it seems to be important at the moment.

Differentiate
Use various ways to present material
Clear goals
Self reflection
Next steps

Specific praise
Consider seating
Feedback to teacher
The new EIF? Intent, implementation, impact.
What you choose to teach doesn’t matter so much.