The Teacher Toolbox

I love having heaps of puzzles in the classroom. This palindrome puzzle is great to have up on the wall and can lead to so much conversation about how to solve it logically.

You can get an A4 version of the puzzle from adrianbruce.com

cheers

Adrian

It’s school holidays here in Oz so I knocked up this puzzle for my son to test out. The problem works well and it is sufficiently challenging. Have fun solving this puzzle.

From the realm of  ‘use it or lose it’ here is a collection of free problem solving apps for the Itouch. My family and I get a fair amount of use and enjoyment out of them. They are free from the Itunes App Store. Enjoy!!!

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CatchaMouse – Toobz-Free – LogPuzzle Free – TanZen Lite – ZentominoLE – Ragdoll Lite – Cross Free – Fifteen – Peg Quest – Magnetic Lite – CrackCode – PegJump – BrainTeaser – Hedge Maze – Dynamite Lite – and the one I shelled out $1.19 for… Nintaii.

I believe that there are only a few things that are certain in the lives of people and one of those things is that they will have to solve problems.

In this activity the students could only animate their solutions once they had solved the tangram puzzles.

The company that was looking after my email newsletter has decided not to continue offering their free service & as a result I’ve been looking for new options.

Last night I sent out my first newsletter with a piece of software hosted on my website and so far it seems to have worked fine.

Tonight I’m sorting out all the broken links to the subscription service and should have it all fixed in an hour or two. Do let me know if you find a broken link.

Secondly, I’ve noticed with the end of the school year here in Oz many people have moved on and will need to resubscribe if you have used your school account. Please pass this info around your collegues.

Cheers

Adrian

PS I’m going to get the new email subscription page working well first and then make it look pretty

At the moment I’m spending a bit of time each day trying to build a website to make the learning of Roman Numerals just a little more interesting than a worksheet. My plan is to include colourful illustrations, interesting facts about the number system and real world places the system is used. I also plan to include a little humour e.g.

Q – How do you cut an empire in half?
A – With a pair of caesars

The site currently has content relating to: origins of the number system, use in copyright, naming kings, milestones, clocks, gladiators, famous battles, why on buildings, why we learn about them & the founding of Rome. I’m thinking of throwing some destruction in e.g. Pompii & the Fire of Rome to keep the punters interested.

As of today I’ve planned about XX pages & have illustrated VII  If you have any tried and true lessons or roman jokes that might make this concept a little more interesting, feel free to email them to me. I’m hoping to have the site ready by the end of November.

cheers

Adrian

I’ve been looking for an interesting immersive world for a while to get my son involved in and I think I might have finally found it is Quest Atlantis.

Quest Atlantis is a multi-user 3d learning environment for students. In the environment students participate in quests. These quests appear to be organised around the themes of: Social Responsibility, Compassionate Wisdom, Creative Expression, Diversity Affirmation, Environmental Awareness, Healthy Communities & Personal Agency.

Before a teacher can implement QA in their classrooms they have to participate in 4 professional development sessions. I’ve signed up for the training and installed the software. The training takes place via Skype and starts Tuesday night.

I’ll let you know how it goes. I’ve heard that it is heaps of fun. Maybe you could sign up & join in.

Cheers

Adrian

I love bringing new puzzles to class. I focus on the most approprate strategy e.g. ‘constant manipulation’ is probably going to work best for you with this puzzle then give the kids about 20 minutes to try and solve it.

While the kids are working on the puzzle I model trying to solve the puzzle myself on an overhead projector. I put the pieces on the panel, slip on my sun glasses and manipulate the pieces constantly and try to create a square

Once the 20 minutes is over the pieces of the puzzle go into envelopes and are kept in desks. The kids are encouraged to take the puzzles home to frustrate parents. Heaps of fun for the whole learning community. hehehe

Have Fun

Adrian

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

I love having examples of traversable networks up around the walls of my classrooms. It is so cool to watch students try and solve them.

Tonight’s addition has a hint that may lead the students to discovering Euler’s rule for traversable networks.

Here is the new problem and just in case you missed them, here are the older problems.

Have fun with these.

Adrian