Thanks Katie in the UK for doing the grunt work on this one. The border was easy.

On my website you can download a Word version or an Acrobat version of this ‘ar’ Phonics Poster

cheers

Adrian

PS If you hand this poster around your school encourage the staff to vote for my blog for saving them a heap of time

Edu-bloggers Award

A HUGE thank you has to go out to Katie in the UK. She is currently on maternity leave from teaching but has put together eight new phonics posters for me to upload to my website so the world can share them

I am currently writing half yearly reports so I’m just uploading one poster tonight and then MUST get back to writing reports…I’m sure you know the drill.

The other thing that I have to thank Katie for is that I’ve wanted to include a motivational quote on the posters for the struggling reader and now I’ve got off my butt and done it.

NB If you have any tried and true motivational quotes in relation to decoding or reading feel free to send them through to me as I’ve got 7 more of Katy’s posters to upload

cheers

Adrian

Hi All,

We have a saying in my circle of friends that… ‘Assumption is the mother of all #@*# ups’. The saying works on so many levels… school, classroom, dealing with management, dealing with systems administrators and many other facets of ‘the real world’.

That said, I must admit that I’ve never one to hide my ignorance… so I need to confess that I made an assumption last week that contributed to a little inefficiency. I assumed that teachers and students knew that there are a variety of web search tools available on the Internet that make certain purposes more efficient. i.e. finding the best Science and Maths sites on the Internet is much easier in a child friendly search engine rather than the, ‘Search Engine of Default’.

All that said, last week I took a step back and introduced the teachers and students to a variety of child friendly search engines. The feedback from the teachers was great as they didn’t know these resources existed and the results that the students achieved was very good as they used tools more appropriate to the task.

Let us hope that everyone can now transfer this learning to search tasks that they conduct in the future

Go on… explore a few of these…

KidsClick Go To KidsClick

Primary School.com.au - This is a site put together by a classroom teacher and is filled with useful sites for all areas of study.

Go to Primary Schools.com.au

Yahoo Kids - This one doesn’t work too well at school but is fantastic at home.
Go To YahooKids

Ask Jeeves 4 Kids - Try the books on the side Go To Ask Jeeves 4 Kids

Google Student Directory - Another excellent site for home:)The Google Student Directory

Use these sites for more ‘kid friendly’ information.

Mr B

Look at that, only 24 more votes to move into 2nd place… go cast a vote my way if this info will educate even one student or teacher

Edu-bloggers Award

What makes a math website ‘cool’?
What makes a math website useful?

There are many questions that students need to reflect on in regards to the worth of some of the ‘educational resources’ available on the Internet.

Tonight I’ve added to my website a website review task in which the children need to explore a few math websites that I chose and discuss them. They then have to head to the Internet to see what they can find in the way of ‘Cool Math Websites’.

They then have to blog their findings and invite comments. This is a really good activity as so much fantastic discussion and reflection occurs. The other benefit is you might come away with a few new math websites for your Teacher Toolbox

cheers

Adrian

PS I’m back up to 3rd in the Bloggers’ Choice Awards. Feel free to cast a vote my way if you now have a way to ‘Work Smarter, Not Harder’ ie you’ve just learnt how to get 30 students finding teaching resources for half and hour each. That’s 15 hours of your time that you don’t have to spend on school work (he says with his tongue firmly in his cheek) hehehehehe

Edu-bloggers Award

The Internet is filled with fantastic Science Education sites. Get your students out there exploring and reporting back to their peers about what they find. Then foster a sense of community by having them blog their rfindings. This puts their ideas out there for the world to comment on.

NB I’ve added a few of my favourite Science websites and some tips and tricks that I’ve discovered over the last few years of setting this task. Check it all out at my Online Science Education page.

cheers

Adrian

On my 3d animation page I’ve just added a link to a piece of fantastic free piece of Computer Aided Design software called Google Sketchup. This software enables everyone to produce 3d models of houses, gardens, rooms and objects simply. This is a great tool to support Science and Technology lessons as well as Design and Technology and could also be integrated in creative ways to Art, English and Maths.

Once you get the hang of creating models you can animate them and even upload them to Google Earth or to a 3d warehouse for others to view and download.

Google Sketchup has been a great hit with my students and I’m sure yours will enjoy it as well.

cheers

Adrian B

Inkscape is a free piece of illustration software that is a nice stepping stone to the more professional packages like Corel Draw or Adobe Illustrator.

In my experience, children do not need to be dropped into the deep end of top end packages as the use they make of the software can’t really justify the cost.

I use Inkscape for teaching cartooning with my students. The ‘calligraphic tool’ is fantastic for getting a nice feel to the lines you create.

Download the software through my Illustration Software page and read some of my ‘Tips and Tricks’ for using it while you are there.

cheers

Adrian

PS The next version of Inkscape is going to have a ‘Paint Bucket Tool’ which will be a welcome addition.

As a result of my frustration of not being able to find a ‘one stop shop’ for the teacher wishing to embark on the, ‘blogging in the classroom’ adventure, I’m slowly (might I add very slowly) building the site.

Today I was looking at why we should blog with students and came across this video.

It includes a few of the ideas that I see as central and I’ve added a few of my ideas as boring old text to my webpage… Why Blog With Students.

I know I’ll be adding more to this site… and probably taking a few things away once morning comes

cheers

Adrian

I think every child goes through school making all the usual 3d shapes eg cubes, prisms and pyramids. Some even get to explore the Platonic solids, but very few students get to explore the really, really interesting 3d shapes like the Great Stellated Dodecahedron

Your challenge is to open your students’ eyes to the world of Maths and let them see that it has lots of interesting things to show them.
(as well as some rather dull stuff hehehehe)

Today I’ve added a page to my website with heaps of ideas for making 3d shapes. There are links to 3d shape nets, tips and tricks for making better 3d shapes as well as a link off to a great page that has nets for some really out there shapes such as the Small Icosihemidodecahedron, the Pentagonal Dipyramid and many, many more.

Have fun with it!

Adrian B
NB My blog is up for an award and I’m currently coming 3rd and only need 28 more votes to hit second. If your students learnt a little something from this task, feel free to cast a vote my way

Edu-bloggers Award

Studying word play can be heaps of fun when you get the students to write and perform their own scripts. On my Funny Jokes Comedy Skit page I’ve included the task brief plus a few tips and tricks for keeping it tasteful NB these are tips that I’ve learnt by doing this activity with 5 different classes.

This is a great task to help you stay sane towards the end of term when you’re getting a little stressed.

cheers

Adrian B