Photo Credit: rbbaird via Compfight
Sometimes parents say:
‘When we learned how to ‘takeaway’ in school
we learned it a different way;
we ‘borrowed’ and ‘paid back’.
Could you show us how subtraction
is taught in schools these days?
This animation may be of some help:
How to subtract by ‘regrouping’ or ‘renaming’.
Click on this link to find out more.
Simon is a Dad in our school.
He wrote a wonderful script
for our Christmas pageant.
Five years ago Simon started
to write a movie.
It is called ‘My Name is Emily’.
He began writing it with a pen
or typing on a keyboard.
Because he has motor neuron disease
he finished it using
a special “eye gaze” computer
that allows him to type
by looking at letters on a screen.
He is now raising the money
to make this movie.
You can read more
of his inspiring story here.
He is our Local Hero.
Photo Credit: Cade Buchanan via Compfight
Happy Birthday to the Edublogs Awards.
This year they are ten years old.
These awards reflect the value
of online educational websites and blogs.
The awards create a showcase
of the best very resources
as educators nominate their favourites.
The awards process is in three stages:
the nomination, voting, and the awards ceremony.
You can read more about the Edublogs Awards 2013 here
I have given a lot of thought to my nominations.
There are so many excellent educational blogs and websites,
choosing wasn’t east and even as I post,
I worry I have forgotten someone wonderful.
Best Individual Blog: Sub Stories
We are in recession here in Ireland and a significant number of newly qualified teachers (NQTs) are waiting by the telephone each morning, awaiting a call to substitute for a teacher who is unwell. Sub Stories chronicles an enthusiasm for teaching, occasional feelings of rejection, and also generously shares links to resources that are useful for teachers who are subbing. She also has a lively complementary Facebook page in tandem with her blog.
Best Group Blog: EdBlogsIE
This is an aggregate blog devised by primary teacher, Nigel Lane which creates a ‘one-stop shop for Irish educational blogs’,
Best New Blog: St. Peter’s Primary Bray Blog
This lively and entertaining blog was born on 13th February 2013. It was quickly on its feet and going from strength to strength, using sound and vision showcasing the excellent work that is going on in this school. I particularly like its use of podcasts that give the students a voice. The way in which this blog reaches out to parents, other schools and the local and wider community is also commendable.
Best Class Blog: Room 5 @ Melville Intermediate School
This blog has many positive attributes of which I will list just three:
1. The teacher Myles Webb and his students communicate and collaborate globally and encourage those new to blogging to do so too.
2. The students’ involvement in all aspects of the making of this blog is apparent and they visit, comment and engage with other class blogs. This often takes the form of inquiries about the culture and traditions in other lands.
3. This blog also teaches about New Zealand’s wonderful culture in an engaging and interactive way.
Best Student Blog:
The uniquely named !ROAR! is written by Mackenzie. It is well written and well illustrated and refects her interests and personality. Mackenzie shares my love of widgets as tools that entertain one’s visitors. Mackenzie also understands the importance of interacting with the visitors to one’s blog and always replies to comments 🙂
Best Ed Tech / Resource Sharing Blog: Seomra Ranga
What can I say! In every classroom I visit I see the resources from this blog; resources of excellent quality and wonderful variety. Seomra Ranga makes a significant contribution to the development of educational resources and the concept of sharing them.
Best Teacher Blog; MargD Teaching Posters
This is a blog I recently discovered; an Aladdin’s Cave for the Primary Teacher. Comprehensive, colourful and creative, this blogger, shares a wealth of teaching ideas, resources and methodologies. There are imaginative ideas for teacher planning and classroom set up. Motivating and inspiring, there is great attention given to helping children listen, think and learn.
Most Influential Blog Post of the Year: Rejection Hurts.
Ok so in theory we do understand that substitute teachers do an important job that requires them to be available, flexible, inventive and patient and that it is not the first choice for a teacher who would love to have their ‘own’ students. This poignant post hits home, giving the reader a better understanding and hopefully empathy for substitute teachers who are searching for a more permanent position. This post is rendered all the more powerful as it contrasts with her posts about her love of and enthusiasm for teaching.
Best Individual Tweeter: Myles Webb @NZWaikato.
The online teaching community on Twitter reflect their calling and are professional, encouraging and affirming. They are generous with their praise and their time. They share their expertise and experience, their links and resources. Chief among these educators on Twitter is Myles Webb @NZWaikato. He does all this and his commitment in terms of time must be significant. For example in the earlier part of this year, he visited very many of the student and class blogs using the #comments4kids hashtag, leaving encouraging and affirming comments.
The value of commenting on student blogs cannot be underestimated and their effect on student self esteem and motivation is hugely significant. Global connections like these is what makes the world go round. Which brings me neatly to:
Best Twitter Hashtag; #comments4kids
William Chamberlain’s ingenious concept which invites tweeters to comment on student blogs.
Best Free Web Tool: Twitter
Best educational use of audio / video / visual / podcast. The Literacy Shed is an answer to a teacher’s prayer. The quality and breadth of the videos that Rob Smith has compiled enriches and inspires our teaching and in turn our students’ learning and development.
Best Educational Use of a Social Network; How I Learn
Once upon a time there was a newly qualified teacher, who was subbing. She wrote about her adventures on her blog and Twitter. She wrote a post about ‘How I Learn’ and invited guest bloggers through her blog and on Twitter to do the same. In this way she used Twitter (a social network) to compile a fascinating account of the variety of ways in which people learn.
The key I feel to her success is the interesting selection of contributors she had including Mary and her son Daniel, an exceptional young man with Down’s Syndrome who is a visual learner and Fintan, a History and English Teacher who is an avid reader.
Through sponsorship and crowd sourcing on Twitter, the intrepid compiler Helen Bullock then secured the finance she needed to publish a book of these accounts (with proceeds going to Barnardo’s Children’s Charity)
and they all lived happily ever after.
Lifetime achievement; Sue Wyatt. The Student Blogging Challenge has been run over a number of years biannually. It is co-ordinated by Sue Wyatt, a very busy and dedicated former teacher from Hobart, Tasmania. It gives the opportunity to individual students and classes who blog, to learn new blogging skills and to develop their blog in a systematic way. Through the well designed weekly challenges they make contact with students and schools all over the globe. Sue also coaches small groups of students with spectacular results (see Let’s Blog! Communicating with the World.) My nomination for Best Student Blog is one of Sue’s students. And so I ‘rest my case’ 😉
Last term, Teacher read us
‘Flat Stanley’, by Jeff Brown.
It is about a boy who was
accidentally squashed
but not hurt.
Now he is as flat as a pancake.
His parents used send him
in a large brown envelope on his holidays.
This was cheaper than going by airplane.
We sent our own Flat Stanleys
for a holiday to kind friends and relations.
The Flat Stanley Project
The children in 2nd Class Room 6 made Flat Stanleys.
We sent them to visit our friends and relatives
in lots of different places.
We found that whether Stanley
travelled all the way to China
or took a short spin to Dublin,
he had GREAT fun and many adventures.
Our Flat Stanleys visited
Athlone, Dublin, Wexford, Wicklow.
They went to Boston, London and Paris,
China, France, Holland, South Africa,
the USA, England and Wales.
One snuck home in teacher’s bag.
He danced on the piano in her house.
Our Flat Stanleys also fed the birds.
They went climbing, played tricks,
fell in ponds and went on an Easter Egg hunt.
They went to other schools,
playgrounds,
coffee shops,
the circus,
the zoo,
a nightclub
and the office.
One went to the Burlington Hotel in Dublin
and had chocolate pudding for tea.
One got fit and went cross country running.
Another ended up in Wicklow Gaol.
The Flat Stanleys saw dogs,
lizards,
crocodiles,
rhinos
and hippos.
One Stanley became famous.
He met the Irish Rugby Team Manager
and had his picture in the newspaper!
The Flat Stanleys travelled
by car, bus, water taxi, plane and tube.
One of the Flat Stanleys in London
went to Covent Garden and saw an invisible man!
Another Flat Stanley got a make-over.
He ended up with a moustache and a Dublin football jersey.
When Stanley came back from Paris
he had a chocolate for all the class.
He got new clothes in China.
Thank you to all the kind people
who helped us with our Flat Stanley project.
Thank you for taking the time.
It was very interesting project.
It was great fun and gave us a lot to talk about.
Photo Credit: december_snowdrift via Compfight
I do an amount of project based learning particularly in SESE. I just think that one has to be very systematic and structured to get the most value from it as a methodology.
I am still struggling with maximizing the benefits of co-operative learning. I feel without a lot of initial direction from teachers, it can fail and have a detrimental effect on the participants, resulting in very little learning.
My own personal and teaching journey goes some way towards explaining my reservations. I am a child of an Irish classroom of the 60s where collaboration was not encouraged! I started teaching in the early 80s where it was seen as an enormous ‘sticking plaster’ where it would be the answer to nearly everything.
At the time the enormous creativity shown in classrooms in the UK were given to us as exemplars. It seemed to me at the time that project based learning was presented nearly as an alternative to strict objective based lesson planning.
I was on my own learning curve when I first started teaching. I had a third class. Deciding that project work was mostly about process and developing research skills I gave the children ‘free choice’ in terms of deciding on their topic with the very first project that we did.
Then each child set about researching their subject. In those days our main source of information was a twenty volume sets of the Children’s Britannica. In my first year teaching I asked one child to look up Russia, her chosen topic. Some long moments later when she hadn’t resurfaced, I went to look for her and found that she had started at the beginning, looking through Volume One Aa – Ay and was laboriously going through each book page by page. That’s when I realized I’d have to teach research skills.
To further elaborate on my reservations about the use of projects in class I wI think Allan Ahlberg‘s poem ‘Do a Project’ sums up my reservations about project work and co-operative learning
Do a project…
Do a project on dinosaurs
Do a project on sport
Do a project on the Empire State Building
The Eiffel Tower
The Blackpool Tower
The top of a bus
Ride a project on horses
Such a project on sweets
Play a project on the piano
Chop a project on trees
Down.
Write a project on paper
A plaster cast
The back of an envelope
The head of a pin
Write a project on the Great Wall of China
Hadrian’s wall
The playground wall
Mrs Wall
Do a project in pencil
In ink
In half an hour
In bed
Instead
Of someone else
In verse
Or worse
Do a project in playtime
Do a project on your hands and knees
Your head
With one arm tied behind you
Do a project wearing handcuffs
In a steel coffin
Eighty feet down
At the bottom of the Hudson River
(which ideally is frozen over)
On Houdini
Forget a project on memory
And refuse one on obedience.
There is also a story that sums the dynamic I often see where there is a group based project where not everyone is pulling their weight.
A Little Story
This is a story
About four people
Named
Everybody
Somebody
Anybody and nobody.
There was an
Important job to
Be done and
Everybody was
Sure that
Somebody would
Do it.
Anybody
Could have done
It, but nobody
Did it.
Somebody
Got angry about
That, because it
Was everybody’s
Job. Everybody
Thought that
Anybody could
Do it, but nobody
realised that
Everybody
Wouldn’t do it.
It ended up that
Everybody
blamed
Somebody when
Nobody did what
Anybody could
Have done.
So it is vital that the teacher monitored that the goals are being achieved and that the participants are maintaining an effective working relationship. Judicious assigning of roles to the team helps.
Photo Credit: Alan via Compfight
Parents have been asking how
to help their children with Maths.
Using ‘concrete objects’ as above is helpful.
Slowly but surely, from First Class up
you could teach your child
these mental maths strategies.
Tables are important too.
Click here to read about
Photo Credit: Tjflex2 via Compfight
We recommend this game.
It is called ‘Funky Mummy’.
Add the two numbers together
and see what happens next.
We think this will make you laugh.
We always do!
Photo Credit: Charles Tilford via Compfight
If you get the sums right,
you get to write your name
in hieroglyphics.
Photo Credit: Widianto Nugroho via Compfight
‘Crossing the Swamp’ from BBC.co.uk
You also can ‘Add Like Mad’,
try some ‘Subtraction Action’
and practise multiplication
Photo Credit: Pascal via Compfight
We are fans of space travel and outer space.
We think it is fascinating.
We enjoy this problem solving game.
It is about building your own satellite.
Click here to try it.
For big fans of outer space,
click here for another great website
we think you will enjoy.
We know we did.
With the clocks going back this evening thoughts turn to Winter.
‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson
Below is a wonderful animation of this melodic song.
‘Winter Song’ by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson
and here is some artwork in chalk inspired by it:
A Word to the Wise:
Please don’t leave your child to explore Photopeach unattended 
The internet is a portal to the world outside. Children should be supervised.
Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk via Compfight
We are learning about a famous artist.
His name is Picasso.
He broke the rules.
He experimented.
We like to experiment too.
We like his paintings.
They are unusual.
Click on this link and you can experiment
with creating pictures like Picasso’s.
And if you would like to read about
other artists we have studied,
take a look at these pages about
Photo Credit: Judy Baxter via Compfight
Simplifying fractions explained from
Six minute video explaining how to simplify fractions
Very comprehensive blog post with lots of ideas
‘Teaching Fractions: Tips, Tricks & Great Websites’
Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine via Compfight
Very simple estimation exercise from Jan Brett.com
Quick fire rounding off game on
‘Which One Rounds?’ from Math Nook
Dart game for rounding off Topmarks.co.uk
Extensive lists on Online Math Learning.com
Photo Credit: Mike Kanert via Compfight
1. ‘Pronoun Balloon Game’ from Soft Schools
2. Build A Clubhouse with Harcourt School.com
3. ‘Personal Pronoun Treasure Hunt’ from BBC.co.uk
and if you can’t find anything there,
there are lots of options here:
We are always on the look out for interesting blogging tools.
We use some ones that the children really like
from www.fodey.com
Students can create very simple but effective animations on it.
Photo Credit: Anne Fröhlich via Compfight
On that site there is a link to The Generator Blog which has even
more ideas for graphics and animations
that would illustrate a post in an entertaining way.
Not all of them are age appropriate
for a primary school blog, but there are many that would be.
We like this one:
