The Teacher Toolbox

I love having chess as a learning centre activity in my classroom. The game is great for concentration in students and I really think it has a carry over into children’s ability to concentrate and read.

I’m now putting together a website that will be filled with posters that a teacher can print out, introduce and then make a wall display from. This way the students can refer to them when learning to play the game.

I feel a lot of people let their students play a level of chess that doesn’t bring out the true beauty of the game. These posters aim to better the quality of chess being played in classrooms all over the world.

So here are the first 3 rules of chess

Drop me a vote if you print this poster

Edu-bloggers Award

About 6 months ago I was avoiding some of my work by reading a book on time management. hehehehe. One of the strategies the book suggested to help avoid procrastinating was to make the activity ‘a little more enjoyable’. I’ve found that writing reports, programming or annotating writing samples is a little easier to face with a bit of music on in the background.

Then my Ipod died. I was lost. Now courtesy of Ebay I have a new one. I bought a 30gig one for about $70 cheaper than I could in any of the shops. Now I’m back to downloading my favourite podcasts and playing them at my son’s soccer practice and in the car on the way to work. I then pop on some music while working on my website or marking at my desk at school. The Ipod has meant that I can take some professional development anywhere.

(My Ipod playing the audio book of Freedman’s ‘The World is Flat’ whilst at my son’s all day soccer carnival - only 2 chapters to go)

In my role as ICT Integration Guy, I get to work with some teachers who are truly ’switch on’.
This lady works in a school in Australia and is big time into thinking skills.

Here is my post to her class’ blog on ‘What Lolly are You?‘