Here is an example of what I was writing about last night. This little scaffold was used to take a Year 2 class through an exploration using a website to create a bar graph. The books I find easiest to get ‘good’ results from are by Dan Green. They show step-by-step how to do each character with the maximum steps being 6 and they are less than $5 each. Too easy!
	How to Draw 101 Monsters: Easy Step-by-step
	Drawing How To Draw 101 Funny People
	Cartoon Characters (How to Draw 101…Books)
Have fun with these Adrian

Look, it’s simple… I DON’T Draw! I just bought these $5 books a year or two back that are sooooooooo easy, it makes it look like I can draw

I now firmly believe that I am not a ‘creative’ person. I just DO what ‘creative’ people do.

I can spend 3 minutes on the whiteboard writing up a scaffold for a particular class task and then add a cartoon beside it and instantly I have respect! hehehehe.

More tomorrow. It is too late now to continue esp given that Miss Emily is in the process of dropping her day sleep.

Adrian

Samuel (my son) is heading for 9 years old and blogging has been a fantastic way to get him to write about his experiences.
Do feel free to drop by his blog & leave him a comment on a job well done given that he did all the movie editing and music creation himself.

http://code-samuel.blogspot.com/

cheersAdrian

PS I’ve never felt the need to drive cars fast. I’m thinking it is a gene that scientists may one day find and eliminate

A couple of years ago I had the opportunity to chat with Gary Stager over a couple of days at a conference I was presenting at. This morning I tapped into Ustream to attend one of his presentations. It was c.7am here in Oz (which was fine) but Miss Emily wanted breakfast, nappy change, love, attention etc. What I found is that you can get rather good at one handed typing

Do make sure you check out some of the Educon channels. There are heaps of fantastic ideas there to interact with and implement with your students and children.

cheers

Adrian

A couple of months back Sarah Wallis contacted me regarding helping out with resources for a library in Wagai, Western Kenya. I had a friend of mine, Bron, print out my phonics posters and laminate them. We then sent them off.

Recently Sarah sent me this message and a few photos. Well done Sarah!

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world” – Nelson Mandela

Congratulations! You have done well.

On 7^th December 2007, Wagai Primary School became one of the first schools in the Western Kenyan region to receive a newly constructed children’s library.

On its completion, the Headmaster enthusiastically shook my hand and proceeded to proudly inspect the range of reading material. It is not often that a community receives such a gift.
What initially began as an idea to transport a few donated books to this school, ultimately catapulted into something much greater, as within three days I was in receipt of twenty emails from Australian authors, each of whom were keen to make book donations. Offers of further help then came from publishers, schools, teachers, students, bookstores, companies, doctors, airlines, a university, a freight company, foundations, family, friends and the general public. Offers of help also came from abroad. It was awesome!

In just eight weeks over $10,000 was raised, with the Australian High Commission in Kenya making a significant contribution toward this total. Around 220kg of beautiful books – mostly brand new – were generously provided. In addition, the money raised exceeded that required to construct this library, so remaining funds will now be used to aid in the construction of further primary school libraries in the region. How cool is that?!

To this end, I am arranging to keep open my original website for an extended period, to facilitate further donations toward these additional projects. Feel free to inform others of this web address – www.justgiving.com/sarahwallis

On behalf of Moving Mountains and the Wagai community, I wish to extend my sincere thanks to each and every one of you for contributing to this project. I simply could not have done it without you. The donations, suggestions and support have been invaluable. Thank you for placing your trust in Moving Mountains. Thank you for making a difference.

In light of recent events in Kenya, I understand that all Moving Mountains’ clients, staff and beneficiaries are safe. Sadly, Francis Kioni, who designed and led the construction of the library, did have his hardware business looted and burnt. Sadly also, is that at least one Kenyan involved in the charity, has lost her home. Please keep these special people in your thoughts and prayers.

Again, thank you to everyone who facilitated in the birth of this project. Know that you have contributed to bringing more joy than you can possibly imagine, to the six hundred youngsters of Wagai Primary School.

Kind regards,

Sarah Wallis

Today I fixed up a page on my site by adding this Pageflake code to it. The code sucks photographers examples of symmetry straight from Flickr to my site. This means that the images will be ever changing. Nice

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This website is excellent as a webquest introduction to line symmetry and rotational symmetry. http://www.adrianbruce.com/Symmetry/

Tonight I’ve finished off a third problem solving poster and I’ve made all three problems available as Word files and Acrobat files on my site. I’ve made the posters big enough to put up on your Math Walls or in the windows of your classroom.

I love watching kids different reactions to these problems. See what sorts of reactions you get when you present them.

cheers

Adrian

PS Remember to hand out the URL so that your students can download the colour versions.

As a kid I remember this network carved into the desk I sat at in Math class. I remember tracing it over and over again with my finger as I sort a solution.

(If only I had the nerve to ask my teacher if he knew the solution or knew of the work of Euler).

Today I asked my son what illustration he thought I should include with the problem. He thought it would be nice to have a candy cane in the hand of an elf… so here it is.

cheers Adrian

PS Can you get your students to add one more path that will make this network traversable?

I’ve spent time tonight experimenting with different software to create resource posters for teaching about ‘traversable networks’ and am pretty happy with my first results.

The fractal was generated in Fractalus by loading in different parameters and experimenting with random colour schemes.

The planets were made in Anim8or and I then wrapped free planet textures around the spheres. The paths were also made in Anim8or by bending cylinders and colouring them red.

My wizard was hand drawn with my Wacom tablet and Inkscape
because I like the calligraphy tool. The whole composite image was then assembled in Photoshop but I could have easily used Paint.Net.

Tomorrow I plan to build the webpage to house this poster then people can use it with their classes next week

cheers

Adrian

PS If you found this post useful remember to subscribe via RSS

Tonight I’ve been putting some of my bookmarked resources into a new Science Education page. I’ve used these sites in the past to help teachers and students realise there are an amazing amount of resources on the Internet that help foster the love of Science.

Science Links Page

Feel free to let me know your favourite sites and I’ll put you in the draw to win this month’s prize.

Cheers

Adrian

NB I’ll be back again tomorrow night to finish the organisation, annotation & add a few more sites. Sleepy now