What’s new @ www.adrianbruce.com

Feb

Greenhouse Effect & the Ozone Hole

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

We hear about the Greenhouse Effect, climate change and Ozone Depletion almost every day in the media. Funny thing is students and often adults confuse the two concepts. This is a research activity that I have used many times over the years and it works well to get the children reducing the school’s environmental footprint.

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Feb

A Little Spelling Strategy That Will Eliminate ‘alot’ :)

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

This fun little spelling strategy is an easy and almost sure fire way to eliminate ‘alot’ from your classroom and school

After using this strategy through a year one of my more gifted students wrote in his Xmas card… ‘Dear Mr B, Thanx for teaching me alot’. He smiled knowingly as he gave it to me

cheers

Adrian

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Feb

Happiness is…

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

Here is an excellent poetry writing scaffold that I’ve used over the years. It can bring out all sorts of emotional intelligence stuff, heaps of thoughtful discussion, a fair amount of writing and in the end produce quite a nice poem that you can celebrate in many different ways.

Enjoy my ‘Happiness is…’ poetry writing scaffold.

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Feb

What Drawing Software Are You Using Adrian?

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

Just lately I’ve been getting a lot of emails about the software that I use to create the drawings on my site. I’m currently experimenting with a piece of open source software called Inkscape. It has a great calligraphy tool that gives the lines a nice cartoon feel. I have Inkscape listed on my computer graphics software page as my students are also enjoying experimenting with it.

I’m currently colouring the drawings in Photoshop but soon I think I’ll move to Paint.net which I have also listed.

There are some great FREE art tools on the site that you can use with your students. Feel free to check them out.
cheers

Adrian

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Feb

What Scientist is That?

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

I love teaching Science in my classes. I especially like to do activities that get the students thinking about some of the ‘big picture’ parts of Science. I feel that these sorts of activities foster positive attitudes towards Science.

This Science lesson can examine the clichés that movies perpetuate about scientists. It also raises awareness in the children of scientists and their research fields. The lesson also requires the children to draw a conclusion on which scientist they think has had the greatest impact on our lives today.

Enjoy

Adrian

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Feb

Creating a Passion for Poetry in Your Students

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

One of my mentors once asked me how I foster a love of poetry in my students. I had to get back to her as I knew I didn’t

After a bit of research, a bit of trial and error and a couple of years of teaching, I have created some excellent scaffolds that get great results.

Today I finally managed to get a couple of these poetry writing ideas online for anyone to use.

So feel free to rip over to my poetry writing page and check them out.

cheers

Adrian

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Feb

The Top 30 Educational Blogs?

Posted by Adrian Published in Uncategorized

While reading a few educational blogs the other night I came across a list of 30 top Educational Blogs over at Dangerously Irrelevant . To make things easier for those not familiar with the ease and joy of RSS feeds I’ve just finished loading nearly all the blogs (there were a few feed hassles) into my Pageflakes RSS Reader for all to share.

I have Pageflakes set up as one of my homepages when Firefox starts as you can have ‘the whole web at your fingertips’.

I also find that when doing professional development with teachers Pageflakes is a good intro into RSS.

cheers

Adrian

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