Tech Tips Tuesday

I thought that today I would mention the tech tools and resources that I called on in my first week back at work. One of my challenges has been remembering what some of the online tools and resources are called, and after that finding that they have changed since I last used them! Some of the resources below were already being used by the teachers in the classrooms I share.

Information sources:
Talking Textiles - This contribution from "The Children's University of Manchester" provides interactive activities and quizzes that help students to develop an understanding of textiles including how they are made and decorated.

How the Body Works - This Kids Health site has movies, quizzes, articles, word finds and activities to teach students about the body systems. I used this with the Year 5/6 students who will be writing explanations of the respiratory system later this week.

Behind the News - This ABC program was used in both Year 3 and Year 5/6 to expose students to recent news and to create opportunities for discussion around current affairs.

Study Ladder - (previously Smart Kiddies - and wow, what an upgrade!!) I used this resource for interactive whiteboard activities for Maths lessons, but there are now activities in a great range of learning areas. Study ladder is free for all my purposes, but for more information on costs see the pricing chart.

Worksheets:

Math Drills - I used the free black line masters for fractions to use with my Maths class.

Classroom Organisation:

Super Teacher Tools - I used the Group Maker tool to create random pairings of students in my Spelling and Maths groups.

Lesson Design:

When creating interactive whiteboard pages for my lessons I returned to the Flickr Creative Commons for images to bring the pages to life.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip - Mind mapping with Kidspiration

I've mentioned Kidspiration on other occasions, but found it useful again this week and worth another mention. It's such an easy tool to use and students pick up on it quickly and use it effectively. I tried it with students in my Year 1/2 class and they really got into it and taught themselves how to find and add pictures, how to change line colours and much more.

Students were asked to create a mind map of the things that keep them healthy. I demonstrated the basics and created my own mind map (though incomplete) as seen below:

They began with the central idea - Keeping Healthy, and then branched out as their inspiration led them. One of my gripes with the program is that it doesn't pick up on spelling as students type or offer suggested spelling. These days that is one of the things you come to expect.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip: Learning about the Brain

Next term both my Year 1 students and my Year 2 students will be completing a health unit. The unit for the Year 1s focuses on what makes us healthy including diet, exercise, sleep, hygiene etc. They unit for the Year 2s focuses on the different body systems and how they work. I've spent some time these holidays seeking out some interactive resources that I can use with a particular focus on the brain and nervous system. I'd like to share some of these with you here:

E-learning for Kids - has a great activity about the brain and nerves. This would be useful to explore with students to gain a greater understanding of how the brain works. It is interactive and has kid-friendly pictures and animations.

The Secret Life of the Brain - is a PBS site providing a range of information about the brain. I particularly like the 3D anatomy of the brain which allows you to look at an illustration of the brain from different angles.

Your Brain and Nervous System and Your Gross and Cool Body: Nervous System- provide explanations of the brain. These will be useful during our literacy lessons when we teach students about the features of explanations and model how to write them.

Brain Drain - is a simple activity for getting an idea of the functions of different parts of the brain.

Brainy Games - is a variety of games to help you learn more about the brain and test your knowledge. I haven't tried them all, but found the ones I did most useful for revision.

Neuron Explosion - goes into greater detail than I plan to cover with my students, but may be a useful activity for students who want to take things further. This simple activity explains the parts of a neuron and has a true/false quiz.

I hope you find something useful for stretching the minds of your students too! Enjoy

10th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the November edition of the Teaching K-6 Carnival. I've been vaguely aware of all the posts being submitted this month and it has been great to finally sit down and take a closer look at them. This month I share with you a number of great posts to enjoy. Be sure to check them out and spend a little time looking at other posts of interest from these bloggers.

Brain Strain

Melissa Hedding from Finds For Families shares some thoughts on the importance of teaching moral discipline early in life in her post The Moral Intellect. In her opinion, "Obedience and self-control are the first morals that a child learns".

Nightwalker shares his Tips To Improve Study Skills at My English Pages. These are a range of skills valuable to learn for students of all ages. This may be a useful list to send home with students early in the school year.

Gripes and Brags

As Erin explains, There ARE Some Students Who Struggle, But Do Not Qualify for Special Education. Her post provides information to parents in the US so that they may seek additional support for their child.

Rachel Lynette of Minds in Bloom encourages teachers to Get your Students to Tell their Parents What they Learned Today. This is a great post to use when reflecting with the class and to share with parents to improve the discussion about school and learning.

At Technology In Class TIC calls for student-centered teaching in The Failure of Teacher-Centered Teaching in A Serious Man. Here he shares some lessons that can be learnt from the movie "A Serious Man".

Andy Burtone from Andy and Ann reveals The Best Tricks to Make Your Middle School Students Happy. It's such a great read that I'm not going to give you any clues. GO READ IT!

In the News

The arrival of swine flu instigated a renewed vigor in teaching hygiene and disease prevention. Matthew Paulson wrote about Child Safety: Preparing for Flu Season at American Consumer News and Lorenzo Crocker shared 7 Facts and Myths about Washing Your Hands posted at online lpn to rn programs. In Addition Quirky Momma shares Glitter Germs: Preschooler Learning posted at quirkymomma.com.This is a great activity to help make invisible germs more concrete to your young learners.

Innovate - Beyond the Slate

This month Mathew Needleman from the Open Court Resources.com Blog shares Questions About Independent Work Time and Beginning of the Year Pre-Assessments. These resources are helpful for pre-assessing, planning and teaching in the literacy classroom.

Jim McGuire presents a convincing argument for student blogging with his post: Goals and Benefits of Student Blogging posted at The Reading Workshop. He describes just how engaging the blogging process can be.

Over at got audiobooks? John Mastro shares his experience of The Educational Benefits of Audiobooks and Children’s Learning. Whether at school, home or out an about, anyone can enjoy the luxury of being read to through an audiobook.

Though a little late now, Kakie presents literacy resources to send home for parents and kids in September is National Literacy Month - Free Resources! posted at Bur Bur & Friends: Community Park.

Tom DeRosa presents Ultimate Number Line Game: Number Sense on a Massive Scale posted at I Want to Teach Forever. This is a great resource for helping students to calculate mentally whilst learning kinaesthetically. It looks like a lot of fun too!

My contribution this month is Space Spectacular where you can read about the activities and resources we have used during our unit of work on Space.

Look No Further

Top 10 Education Wonks to Follow on Twitter

100 Blogs Every New Teacher Should Read

100+ Google Tricks That Will Save You Time in School

10 Historical Speeches that Every Student Should Listen To

100 Best Open Source Apps for Educators

Top 10 Free Open Courseware Classes for Special Ed. Teachers

50 Excellent Blogs About Education Reform

100 Free Tools to Tutor Yourself in Anything

Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I will be collecting submissions throughout the next month, looking in particular for posts that discuss and exemplify innovative teaching and the integration of technology in the K-6 classroom. I also invite some discussion around education related news articles and a few "brain strains" to keep our minds alert and challenged. Please submit only articles of which you are the author and refrain from using this merely as a sales pitch. For full details, please read my call for submissions.

If you have a relevant post that you would like to submit to the next edition of teaching k-6 carnival use our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Support this Carnival

If you enjoyed this edition of the carnival, you can support its continuation by sharing it with others. Link to us, add us to a tweet, stumble or digg us. Thanks!

Technorati tags: teaching k-6 carnival, blog carnival.

The Blogger Behind This Blog #5

Lately I've been feeling a bit disconnected from my readers. I feel like I've just been popping in with a quick spiel about what's going on in the classroom, without really sharing what's been going on for me as a real live person! So, for those of you who are interested, here's an update of my life outside of school:

New Investors
My husband and I are in the process of purchasing an investment property which is already tenanted. This is our first investment property, and it has been pretty exciting to see everything falling into place. We're looking forward to finalising the settlement in the week ahead.

Health and Fitness
My husband decided he wanted to get into a regular running routine to keep up his fitness. The carrot he began dangling was that he wanted to comfortably run the 10km loop in Central Park when we're there later this year. He suggested that the rest of our travel group jump on board too, and sure enough, I found myself adding yet another commitment to my list of to-dos. Whilst looking for an appropriate training program, I came across the Sydney City 2 Surf one, and decided to give the Intermediate program a go. Then my husband and I decided we might as well run the City 2 Surf this year. Hubby has paid the registration and also registered us for a 1-mile race in NYC. So... I'm back into the running again and actually enjoying it! I've also been trying to diet a little using Shape Up on my iPhone. I wouldn't mind losing just a few kilos and with all the running I'm doing, it's actually not TOO difficult!

Hobbies
In just the last week I started to dabble with crochet. I know... it's a granny hobby. They even call them "granny squares", but I'm enjoying learning something new using YouTube as my teacher. It's actually been really great because you can see the stitches modelled and then pause the video and watch it over and over and over without testing anyone's patience. This is personalised learning at its best! I'm actually keen to learn how to make amigurumi figures as I can see the potential for exploring my creativity with these. I wonder if I'll still be so keen once the new term starts and I'm back at uni again!

Birthday
I recently had my 31st birthday and my hubby went over-the-top-out-of-his-way to make it a special day for me. The night before he took me out to dinner AND a chick flick (where I even had a choc-top despite my attempts at dieting!). On my birthday night he cooked me THE MOST AMAZING steak complete with home-made jus (that took 2 days to prepare) and DELICIOUS home-made chocolate eclairs for dessert. He didn't mind that I put my pjs on at 4pm and he let me bludge and enjoy the day. It was very relaxing and enjoyable.

The Hot Seat
A few weeks ago I wrote a post about Dealing with Disappointment, when I applied for a temporary promotion role in my school and didn't get it. As it turns out, the person who did get it has now been offered a different temporary position outside of my school, so I'll get a chance in the hot seat after all. It will run for the first four weeks of next term. (To be completely honest, I'm kind of glad I didn't get it for the full length of time as the last couple of weeks were hard enough without the extra responsibility.)

Holidays ahead
I'm really looking forward to the holidays in just over a week. I'm not sure yet how I'll use the time - hopefully to get a little ahead of myself for next term, but also getting enough time in for rejuvenation as well!


Flickr Image: Light Blue Giraffe by amigurmi

Fitness Update

As I watched my kiddies doing their run today, I realised that it is time for an update on here. They have come SO far with the whole daily fitness thing, and as we draw toward the end of the year, I wonder what will happen for them next year.

Today we did a pretty standard "count your laps between the goalposts" kind of deal. I ran (jogged) with them (despite not having the right shoes for it AND being in a tight skirt!) I think I counted 16 laps for myself. As I ran, I realised how independent my students have become. Everyone kept moving for the whole time - there was no grumbling, and students were self-directed in terms of when they ran and when they walked for a break. At the end of our 10 minutes, everyone came over to the "stretching bars" (part of the playground equipment where we do our stretches) and did the stretches, changing legs on my count. Sometimes these days, I even let the kids do the counting for themselves. Everyone is now used to the routine and has developed their fitness as a result. I notice that my students are more likely to run for other purposes throughout the day as well.

As my class is the only Junior School class that gets out there first thing in the mornings, I wonder what will happen for them as they head into year 2. At our school they will be moving on as a group, despite the fact that we have three classes in the age cohort. I wonder whether through sheer "power of numbers and influence" they will be able to encourage their new teacher to take them out for a run each morning. I wonder whether they will choose to do it for themselves if not given the opportunity in class time. I wonder whether it will have any impact in the long term!

If nothing else, I know that it has improved their fitness for THIS year, and improved my start to each day!

Teacher Sick Days

I'm having a sick day at home today, having fought with an incoming cold for all of the week. I find it really difficult to keep going with teaching when a head-cold hits.
I usually notice it first by how tired I feel at lunchtime. Then my throat starts to get croaky, and I have to work twice as hard to keep my class on task. I also find that I start messing up everyone's names! Before I know it, I'm feeling completely incompetent at my job and stressed out by the whole thing.
So why do we teachers do this to ourselves?
Sometimes, I think we feel that our program is too important to miss a day, and that no one but us can present the program the way we have designed it.
Sometimes we love the lessons we have prepared too much to hand them over to someone else. WE want to be there to see how they turn out!
Sometimes we feel that a day off will disrupt the class too much and they will riot, and be hard to refocus on our return.
Sometimes we have too much administrative stuff to get through, and don't feel we can afford to take the day off - too much to prepare (for interviews, reports, assessment, learning journeys etc).
What are your reasons for going to work when you are on death's door?

The Fitness Challenge - Beating Obesity

Today I would like to look at how regular physical activity and 'health breaks' can be used in the classroom to promote a healthy lifestyle.

One of the challenges of teaching is balancing all that needs to be done in order to create well-rounded students. We're in the business of educating students for life beyond the classroom. Part of this involves teaching them how to make lifechoices that will help them maintain health and fitness. I know from my experience teaching, that this is an area often pushed to the side in order to ensure that the kids can read and write properly, or complete the Maths program.

In recent years, I have seen the 'fruit break/health break' idea being used more regularly in schools. As schools commit to a 2-hour literacy block in the morning, they are finding that students (particularly the younger ones) are getting hungry, and losing focus before they make it to the first scheduled meal break. Many schools have found that by taking a break mid-way through this morning session (for a piece of fresh fruit or vegetable, and a drink of water) students are exposed to healthy eating and are able to continue for the rest of the session. I have been aware of this being done in a couple of different ways:

20 minute Health-Break/Fit Hit

The first 10 minutes of this break is devoted to the eating of fruit/vegetable. On completion the scraps are collected into a compost bin or worm farm container. The second 10 minutes are used for physical activity of some description - a run, kid-aerobics, skipping, or another game.

Shared fruit Health-Break

Students bring in a piece of fruit on a given day. These fruits are cut up and shared amongst the class while students continue with work at their desks. (This strategy has been particularly successful with students in grades 4-6.)

Fruit Break with Stories or Show and Tell

Students bring their own fruit snack and eat it while the teacher reads a story, or while their classmates share their Show and Tell.

Fruit Break and Independent Reading

Students bring their own fruit snack and eat it. They then read a book independently or with a partner until the end of the fruit break period.

Another important aspect for the health of our students is regular exercise. The easiest way I've found to manage this, is through daily exercise as soon as the children arrive at school. I've tried walking and running for this, but I've also seen teachers set up a number of aerobic activities for the classes to rotate through. Not only does it teach students the value of daily exercise, but it also clears their minds and somehow helps to settle them for the rest of the day. I often find myself tearing my hair out more on the days where I had to skip the run for one reason or another!

Daily Walk

In the first term of the school year, I use this time as a walking time. We walk around the school yard, returning to class at the end. Each student takes a turn at the front of the line, chatting to me, and then goes to the back of the line to talk with their friends. I find this helps me to get to know the children in my class, and helps them to realise that walking is a social thing - a way to chat with others. I have a fairly simple script to get the kids talking. I start with "Hi ___. What would you like to tell me today?" and finish off with "Thanks for chatting with me. Have a great day." Of course, there will be variations on this, but this helped to get me started.

Daily Run

As I am a bit of a runner myself (though I've never come first in a race in my life!) I thought it would be beneficial to get my class running. It's another easy physical activity that has great health benefits and doesn't require any equipment. Every day I take my class for a run of one kind or another. My goal is to keep them moving for 10 minutes. Sometimes we have short fast races, other days we go for longer laps. Some days students run with a partner and decide the destinations together, other days they tag team with one student playing on the playground while the other runs between two sets of goal posts. Sometimes we set up cones and sprint to one, skip to another, walk to the third, and jog to the fourth - students choose which cone they will move towards and then return to the starting point.

When I remember, I attach a watch with GPS, to one of the kids so we can get an idea of how far we have travelled. You might prefer to use pedometers as these are more easily attainable.

For Older Kids

When I've taught older kids (grade 3) I spent the first term teaching my class a number of different games. Once they were familiar with the games and understood some of the elements that make an effective fitness session, I chose weekly leaders who were responsible for running the activity for the class. The kids loved the responsibility and gained leadership skills which could help them attempt sports leadership in later years. A couple of times I even found them starting up these games in their lunch or recess time.

Whatever you decide to do, remember that your goal is to get kids motivated and moving toward a healthy future. Think through your own areas of interest and strength and use these. The more interested and motivated you are, the more likely you are to keep it going regularly. Kids are motivated by your enthusiasm.