The Teacher Toolbox

Two stories led me to creating this Stressbuster.

Story 1.

After just one year of teaching, a very talented music teacher friend of mine tossed it all in and went off to do ‘other things’. At his farewell morning tea I had a quiet word to him and inquired, ‘So mate, what led you to make this call?’

‘Look around this room Adrian,’ he whispered, ‘look at their faces, there is not a happy soul among them and I feel like I’m turning into one of them. I don’t want that for myself or my family.’

I must agree, I felt pretty much the same as him at the time.

Story 2.

A couple of months back I had dinner with a couple of second year Uni students after they had just finished their prac experience. As the wine flowed they recounted their experiences in staffrooms and how they found them such depressing places.

So are you one of the people who contribute to a toxic workplace, or are you one of the few who make the work environment a great place to educate and celebrate learning?

More Stressbusters

Tonight whilst multi-tasking (yes blokes can walk and chew gum at the same time)… I was Skyping a person who is about to give a keynote here in Oz & working on an electronic jigsaw based on ‘air’ words @ the same time.

So… what’s my point?

I guess it is that the free tools we now find ourselves immersed in are extremely powerful and it is up to us to harness their power in creative and powerful ways.

So that said, ‘What are you doing it harness the power of modern tools?’

Or more to the point… ‘What could you be doing to harness their power?

It’s worth a thought!

Adrian

Tonight I’ve made a phonics poster for ’soft g’ for you to download and add to your Word Wall.  I’ve also taken it just a little further by making the poster into an electronic jigsaw with a program from Tibo Software.

I’m hoping that people can run it on their networks from a data stick or by placing the *.exe file in a shared folder.

You can download the soft g poster here and the jigsaw puzzle here.

Enjoy

Adrian

A huge thanks to Kellie from somewhere in Australia for sending me her list of i_e words that can be attached directly to the fish in my fishing game.

This phonics word game is one that students in the early years really love.

See what you think and feel free to use the new form to recommend it to your friends.

cheers

Adrian

Here are 3 excellent word games to download play with your students.

The first game focuses on the phonics blends of pl, br,gr, st, fr, sl, scr, str, dr bl, fl & cr.

The next is a tried and true card game that focuses on ai, ay, ee & ea.

The third game I’ve been working on focuses on contractions. (A favourite of many teachers)

I’m currently trying to improve the navigation on my website and have added a ‘breadcrumbs’ tree at the top of the pages to let you know where on the site you are.  Hopefully this will help people find more of my games easily.

I’m also in the process of adding a ’search feature’ to each page to help people navigate to games that they have used in the past but just can’t remember where they are

The ‘Tell a friend’ form at the bottom of each page is an attempt to have people spread the word about my site. Feel free to send a few emails to friends about these games.

cheers

Adrian

Here is a new phonics poster for your word wall.

Print out the A4 version from my Phonics Poster Collection.

cheers

Adrian

Yesterday I found out several of my ‘Four in a Row’ games had broken links to the Word versions and the blank template. After a few choice words pointed at Dreamweaver I’m thinking it’s all fixed now

Sorry to those 645 people who couldn’t find the game they were after last month.

Syllabification Game

Blank Game Template

cheers

Adrian

This Capital Letter Matching Game is one of the first I ever made. Tonight I discovered there were several ‘techo’ things wrong with the webpage so now it should be up again and working fine for all to download.

The game is for four or five players and has several common uses of CAPITAL LETTERS in the chicken’s speech bubble.

Capital Letter Matching Game

Have fun cutting out the pieces

Adrian

PS If you find this game useful feel free to email the link to your friends

Hi All,

Tonight I’ve added a blank template to this phonics game page as it is a very popular game with students.

Download Reading Jump

cheers

Adrian

Early on in creating my ‘word games’ I decided to supply a blank template so that when people made their own game based on my games they could email me their work & I could share their work with the world.

So thank you Shandra! – your contribution will be helping teachers & students all over the world almost instantly.

Download the word game here!

regards

Adrian