The Teacher Toolbox

In the beginning adrianbruce.com was a means for me to put the stuff I use with my classes online for the world to use so people don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Now, as time goes by, I’ve become aware that the navigation of the site is (insert nice word for become very difficult).

So at the moment I’m working on putting a ‘google search field’ on each page as well as ‘breadcrumb’ navigation i.e. at the top of each page you’ll see – adrianbruce.com (which will get you back to the homepage) / Math ( which will get you back to the Math Page ) and then the page you are on.

Hopefully this will enable people to find their way around my teaching resources a little more easily.

That said, today I’ve updated lots of stuff… Feel free to check out and use it with your kids…

The calculator game

Place Value game

Olympic Diving

Addition Doubles

& Place Value Charts - Thousands, Millions, Billions, Trillions, Quadrillions

catch ya soon

Adrian

Last night Ginsberg was reading Beat Poetry to a disinterested porcelain cat who wished only to be known as Bono while Tom Waits (who’d been drinking again) was smashing my dinner plates into the sink

I love having students keep a dream diary for a week or two as homework. The dream recordings can be used for song lyrics, poetry, art, creative writing or even just the discussion relating to Psychology, Science or even Dream Interpretation.

Give it a go as this task can generate a great deal of discussion.

cheers

Adrian

Here’s an activity where I ask the children to become life coaches and produce a 5 panel comic strip of a fable that they think would be a valuable ‘life lesson’ for a member of our class. NB No one is allowed to mention names

I’m always amazed at what they come up with.

cheers

Adrian

Having the children interview their parents about the day of their birth makes for some really pleasant and interesting reading.

Check out the tips and tricks section for a few hints on this activity.

cheers

Adrian

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.

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

This paper plane activity encourages students to actively investigate flight. They also have a heap of fun testing the models

cheers

Adrian

My Origami task is a fantastic way of teaching research skills, group work, resilience, how to follow complex procedural texts, problem solving and community building just to name a few.

Check out the page for some ideas on how to get it happening in your classroom painlessly.

cheers

Adrian

Tonight I have taken the first steps in setting up a classroom blog for a teacher in a school that I work with. After a bit of looking around we have decided that our initial steps into the Blogosphere will be done with David Warlick’s Class Blogmeister.

The main reason for choosing this hosting site is that it is maintained by an educator who really knows his stuff (check out David’s Blog & Podcast if you don’t believe me) and a great interface for screening student posts and any comments before they ‘go live’

Mrs S and I are looking forward to a very steep learning curve over the next Aussie term so do pop by from time to time to see what the students have been up to.

If you are asking yourself ‘What’s a Blog?‘ then follow the link and let the Ace Kids show you.

If you are wondering about the rather ‘out there’ Australian names, I’ve run the students names through an anagram generator to generate interesting pseudonyms.

cheers

Adrian Bruce
(Cured in a Bar) hehehehe

Have you ever asked a child what they thought of a film like ‘Madagascar’ or ‘Flushed Away’ only to get… a shrug of the shoulders and ‘errr it was alright’ or the sheer eloquence of ‘It sucked’.

Here is a movie review activity designed to get your students beginning to use the language of criticism in relation to movies and DVDs.

See what you think.

Adrian