Friday Fun

Here I am, trying again to keep the Friday Fun posts happening. I think the trick is to write it as we work through the week. A little each night is much more manageable than a big chunk at the end of the week when I would really prefer to be relaxing with my husband, enjoying take-away Indian food and a glass of Shiraz!

Our Inquiry

As well as continuing our work on reconciliation this week, we have jumped further back in time to learn about Indigenous Australian lifestyle prior to European settlement.

On Monday and Tuesday I worked with each group on their reconciliation plan and helped them to do some fine-tuning. One great thing about using the Explain Everything app, was that it was fairly easy to edit and make adjustments - changing pictures which perhaps weren't as effective, re-wording phrases where inaccurate information was being shared.

Through the students' work I was able to see some common misunderstandings and correct these during class discussion. Some things that needed clarifying were: that the stolen generations were taken long ago and are now parents and grandparents, and that Indigenous Australians don't want our pity - but rather our acknowledgement of the past and a commitment to an improved future together. On the weekend I had found out about an Aboriginal health service in our local area, so we have tailored our fundraising proposal to that end.

In the afternoons we watched the "before time" episodes of My Place Series 2. Students took notes on the first day, recording facts and questions under the headings - "The video showed" and "It made me wonder". Part way through viewing, we paused the video for students to discuss what they had seen and wondered so far. We encouraged students to think about Aboriginal lifestyle prior to European settlement (food, clothing, shelter, customs, environment) rather than focus on the plot of the story. Students then worked in teams of four to create a mind map with the Inspiration iPad app. The My Place Website is a great follow on from the videos.

Here is a picture of my mind map:

As part of our 30 Days of Drawing project (not consecutive days for us - more like one a week!) students took the statements about the connection to the land from Idjhil by Helen Bell and illustrated what one of the statements meant to them. The quality of student images was very impressive.

We also discussed the central idea of our inquiry unit: Indigenous cultures change over time. We thought of other words that could be used in place of the words in this idea. Students then used Socrative on the iPads to log how they would phrase the inquiry in their own words.
This was a quick and easy way to compile our ideas in one document, print and display. It was my second time with Socrative after a miserable failure last time. This time we ensured we were all connected to the internet before starting the app.

Maths

In our Maths lessons at the start of the week, we worked on the four times tables. We looked at the strategy "double, double again" and students practised applying this method. We practised with the Tables Toons on Mathletics along with a dice rolling game and a card game.

For the dice game, students simply rolled the dice and multiplied by 4 (doubling, doubling again if they couldn't recall the answer immediately).

For the card game, they played in pairs with a standard deck of cards (K, Q, J = 10, A=1, Jokers removed). The first student shuffled the cards and fanned them out for the second student to select one. The second student multiplied the number by 4 and gave the answer. The first student then tried to work out the card number by dividing by 4. This game helps students to see the connection between multiplication and division and assists with recall of facts.

I encouraged students to use these games at home to practise their tables.

Students also explored fractions using resources on Scootle, as well as iPads. In one of our sessions they used Notability to compare fraction sizes. In another session they worked with fractions of a group and used Explain Everything to record their thinking. These lessons will be explained in greater detail for Tech Tips in upcoming weeks.

Literacy

Students have been working on stories that they planned and began writing earlier in the term. We are trying to see these through to publication as books to put on our shelves. It is taking quite some time for students to complete the whole process, and we have had many interruptions.

We also read some Dreaming stories and students used post-it notes to jot down their thoughts on the following questions:

What are Dreaming stories?

What are their features and purpose?

Who is the audience?

We discussed these ideas and they were compiled into one document.


We've had another great week, full of new learning and challenges. Next week we head off on our school camp - hoping for warm weather and no rain!

Tech Tips Tuesday

National Library Of Australia - Digital Collection

This year is Canberra's centenary and there have been many events celebrating the life of Canberra during this time, with more still to come. For Canberra's birthday at school, I was asked to put together a 5 minute silent 'movie' showing footage and photos of significant events and the building of Canberra into what it is today. 

I can't share it here due to copyright restrictions, but it was enjoyable to put together and explore the images available through the National Archives and the National Library of Australia. I used iMovie to edit the clips and create the movie.

I have been back to the National Library of Australia's site this week looking for resources to use for another lesson I am designing, and again the results have been very pleasing. I am fascinated by the images of Lake Burley Griffin in its construction phase, and struck by the concept of such a complex task to make something that looks like a natural environment. I remember being just as amazed (if not more) when I first learned of the planning and design that went into Central Park in New York City. It is interesting to look back at our history and do so with articles from the past. The digital collection includes: pictures, maps, manuscripts, books & serials, printed music and oral history.

So, today I want to encourage you to check out the resources available at the National Library of Australia either through their website, or through their app, particularly when teaching a unit about Australia's history.

12th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the January 2010 edition of the Teaching K-6 Carnival. This edition marks the start of the second year of this carnival. As we head into 2010 we look forward to another year of learning filled with inspiration, collaboration, and challenges.

Brain Strain

Allison Johanson presents a great read for those teachers on vacation who are looking for ways to keep their minds active. You may also find some useful ideas for the classroom in her 55 Tips to Instantly Make Your Brain Stronger and Faster posted at Masters in Health Informatics.

Nightwalker explains Content-Based Instruction – A Cognitive Approach in his post at My English Pages. This is a good introduction as a starting point to learning and applying content-based instruction.

Gripes and Brags

Mimi shares her passion for children's books and tells us about a close encounter with the author type in Warning: People In Mirror May Not Be As Fabulous As They Appear posted at It's Not All Flowers and Sausages. If you haven't discovered her blog yet, don't hold off any longer - it's a winner.

In the News

Keira presents Why Should Kids Read Newspapers? posted at Literature Young Adult Fiction, saying, "Reading the newspaper is a great way to encourage reading habits and teach skills."

Innovate - Beyond the Slate

Rachel Lynette of Minds in Bloom gives us a great list of ideas to help us Get out of that Rut! These suggestions help to shake things up in the classroom to prevent boredom setting in.

Tom DeRosa presents Use a Deck of Cards to Set Your Child Up For Future Math Success posted at I Want to Teach Forever. These simple suggestions help students to develop skills with sorting and counting and pave the way for more difficult concepts.

MG presents ideas on Teaching our kids to save. posted at Personalize Baby. Why not use this suggestion to inspire an art project to make personalised piggy banks that students can fill at home?

At A Reader's Community, M Dahms presents an answer to the question What is Reader's Workshop? Here you can find all you need to get started and keep going with Reader's Workshops.

Elementaryhistoryteacher presents Bespoken Blacksmiths posted at History Is Elementary. This post helps us to think more about the importance of teaching subject specific vocabulary, and also helps us to understand the context of blacksmithing.

Vera Lang presents How to Knit Christmas Tree Ornaments posted at Fine Craft Guild .com. While a little late for this year, these may come in handy for 2010. "These little Christmas tree ornaments are so easy that kids could make them as presents for their family home. Great seasonal projects. Free patterns, illustrations and craft tips provides."

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.

New Gold Mountain #3

Unfortunately, I found it too difficult to keep up with regular posts about our unit on the book "New Gold Mountain" by Christopher W. Cheng. Instead, I am offering some suggestions for the activities that I found useful. Please also check New Gold Mountain #1 and New Gold Mountain #2 for earlier posts.

Learn to play Fan Tan - The Chinese miners regularly played Fan Tan, a card game, and often gambled away their new-found wealth. We had a few games and came to realise how noisy the game could be and how easily it could lead to frustration and arguments - especially if money was involved!

Letters back to China - In the book one of the characters writes a letter back to his village in China. He doesn't tell the truth about his situation given that he has gambled away all his gold playing Fan Tan! Students wrote two letters back to China: one painting a rosy picture of the situation, and one giving a more honest account.

Character Comparison - As a class we made a Venn Diagram to illustrate the similarities and differences between Rowan (of Rin) and Shu Cheong. Students became really engaged in this activity and sought out lots of great examples of similarities. When we had finished brainstorming, students wrote the comparison in essay form. I gave them an introductory paragraph and then helped them to work through a structure for following paragraphs. We thought of some useful phrases for beginning paragraphs: 'An important similarity is...' 'Yet another similarity is...' 'Both Rowan and Shu Cheong...' We also thought of some comparison connectives (I'm sure they have a proper name) like 'whereas', 'while', 'however', 'although', 'but', 'and', 'whilst'.

Historical Diary - I already mentioned that students created a diary entry from the perspective of a convict. Later in the unit we repeated this activity with students writing from the perspective of an explorer of their choice. I borrowed a huge pile of non-fiction texts about explorers from the library. Students were given about 30 minutes to research their explorer and take some notes. They then moved into small groups focused on the same explorer to share the knowledge they had uncovered. After this sharing time students went back to working independently and created their diary entries. They were given more time to work on this in future lessons.

Final Weeks - In the final weeks I wanted to give students a chance to take charge of their learning and self-manage their tasks. Students needed to complete the reading of the text and review, edit and publish one of their written pieces from the term so that we could compile them into a class book. Students responded well to this and most completed both tasks by the due date.


Thoughts on the unit...
This was a great book to use as part of our study of Australian History as it helped students to consider the non-European perspective. It provided us with an opportunity to discuss racism and to form arguments against racism.
I enjoyed introducing students to historical fiction and found the diary format an easy way for students to dabble with writing historical fiction for themselves.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip: Let them touch the tools

This week I've been thinking a lot about the magic students can do when you give them the tools. I think that often we're too scared to give kids tools to work with. We may be worried that they will break them or that they'll lose them or even that they might hurt themselves with them. We spend so much time focusing on the negatives that we may not even consider the potential of allowing students to use them.

When I was away on camp, I handed around my camera and the class' flip camera. It was really enjoyable to see how each student approached movie making. It made me realise that some students are great interviewers, others have excellent camera presence and still others are budding documentary makers!

We've also been testing out some tools from yesteryear. Descendents of Tom Lester (who found the gold that started the Australian gold rush) presented a workshop on gold for students yesterday, and they got to find 'gold' amongst the gravel using a cradle.

Later in the day, we had the opportunity to go up the Ridge again and do some weeding. Students worked in pairs with specially made hoes to dig out the verbascum up there. It is amazing the impact 60 students can have when they all work together to pull weeds for half an hour.

So, moral of the story? Whatever you're doing and whichever technologies you're using, put it into the hands of the kids. It's worth it. You'll be amazed.

Get a Free History Education Online

As I'm currently teaching about Australian History with my Year 4s, I thought it might be nice to share some resources about history that are relevant to people in other areas of the world (particularly the US). Karen Schweitzer approached me with this guest post:

Some of the best colleges, universities, and learning institutions offer free history courses and other educational materials online. You can use these resources to increase your own knowledge or enhance your students' classroom experience:

MIT History Courses - The Department of History at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology makes nearly 100 free history courses available online through the school's Open Courseware program. All of the courses are designed for college students at the undergraduate or graduate level. The majority can be translated into multiple languages and include a wide range of materials for self-learners.

FREE - FREE (Federal Resources for Educational Excellence) is dedicated to providing free teaching and learning resources from federal agencies. History topics on this site include American history and world history. FREE offers images, documents, videos, and other learning materials.

History Channel Classroom - This History Channel mini-site is a great place to find free history education online. The site has a "day in history" feature, video clips, quizzes, activity suggestions, and other learning resources. Teachers will like the site's study guides that can be downloaded for free. Each guide is designed to accompany History Channel Classroom programs. Pages can be printed and include quizzes, classroom activities, and discussion topics.

BRI eLessons - The Bill of Rights Institute offers topical eLessons aimed at teachers who want to teach students more about America’s founding principles. The free eLessons are delivered via email and include historical content, classroom activities, discussion topics, and other educational materials.

Civics Education - Civics Online, a collaborative online project, provides a wide range of learning tools, classroom activities, and other educational materials for parents, students, and teachers who want to learn more about civics. The site also links to a number of online libraries and primary sources for civics education.

American History - Known as Crossroads, this website is a joint effort between The Sage Colleges (Troy, NY) and the Niskayuna School District (Niskayuna, NY). The goal of Crossroads is to provide comprehensive K-16 curriculum in American history. The curriculum is organized by historical period and grade level.

Bridging World History - This free world history course from Learner.org is comprised of 26 chronological units. Each unit includes a 30 minute video and online text. Other course features include a database of audio pronunciations, historical images, and activities.

The First Thanksgiving - Scholastic offers several free online history courses, including this course about the first Thanksgiving. Students can take a virtual voyage on the Mayflower, learn more about the daily life of pilgrims, and explore a wide range of related topics.

The American Civil War - The University of Washington offers a comprehensive online course with a focus on the American Civil War. The course is split into four easy-to-manage modules and includes everything students need to gain an understanding of the circumstances that led to the war and the government aftermath.

Geography, U.S. History and Government - This free course from Western Governors University was created specifically for online learners. The college-level course was meant to be completed over a period of 12 weeks, but is set up so that students can learn at their own pace. Covered topics include colonization, topography, citizenship, civil liberties, and early government.

Guest post from Karen Schweitzer who writes for OnlineColleges.net, a site that provides university information for students.

5th Teaching K-6 Carnival

Welcome to the May edition of the Teaching K-6 Blog Carnival. This month we have a great group of posts and yet again, lots of lists to choose from. I encourage you to check them out and share your comments with the bloggers. Enjoy!

Gripes and Brags

Hall monitor starts this month with a gripe, saying "Is corporal punishment an effective form of discipline?" in his post Progress Report: WTF is up with hitting students?! at DetentionSlip.org.

Historyiselementary brags about a new book The Gift at History Is Elementary. She says, "This post is part book review and part opinion piece regarding the value of personal history and how it fits in with the American story."

Brain Strain

Mark Marshall stops us in our tracks and poses the question Do Classroom Blogs belong in Elementary Schools? posted at Musings from an International Teacher. What is your opinion? Leave your comment to add to the discussion.

In the News

Alvaro Fernandez presents Arts and Smarts: Test Scores and Cognitive Development posted at SharpBrains, saying, "At a time when educators are preoccupied with standards, testing, and the bottom line, some researchers suggest the arts can boost students' test scores; others aren't convinced. Karin Evans asks, What are the arts good for?"

Innovate - Beyond the Slate
Mathew Needleman shares his ideas on How to Get Started Making Class Movies posted at Open Court Resources.com Blog. His down to earth post will help you prepare students for the task of making and editing a movie.

At Child Care Only Fiona Lohrenz presents Tips For Storytime. She shares ideas for selecting texts and choosing an appropriate reading space. This month she also shares her ideas for creating exciting treasure hunts in A Late, Great Idea.

Meaghan Montrose presents Effective Learning Strategies and Study Skills Part 3 posted at Colleen Palat. She shares tips on how students can prepare for exams by creating and rehearsing questions.
Kelly Hines gives us a rundown of how can raise non-technology savvy students in her Unlucky Lists posted at Keeping Kids First. Definitely worth a read.

Look No Further
Wendy Piersall presents Zoo Animal Coloring Pages: Zoo Babies posted at Animal Jr.

Sarah Scrafford presents 100 Free Courses & Tutorials for Aspiring iPhone App Developers, 100 Lectures That Will Teach You to Be Rich, and 100 Awesome Cheat Sheets to Learn and Do Everything in Less Time.

Erika Collin presents 100 All-Time Best Productivity Tips for Working & Learning from Home

Nancy Miller presents 100 Resources to Help You Read Better and Faster posted at Online University Reviews.


Why not submit your post for the next carnival?

The Teaching K-6 Carnival is posted monthly on the 7th. I am collecting submissions throughout the 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 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!

Finishing The Way We Were

This week we finished our unit of work on "The Way We Were". While we've been learning some great stuff, it was starting to drag a little, and so, I organised the last few activities to tie up any loose ends.

To demonstrate what they had learnt about childhood in the past, I got my students to take turns pretending they were an old person who had come to tell the class about when they were a child. I wanted to see if they could remember a few things about the key topics we had covered. It might have worked better if we hadn't had such a muddled week. The kids presented points for most of the topics, and some did a REALLY great job, but generally they were tired and bored during the presentations.

We also made "Olden Days Photographs". Students drew pictures of things they'd learnt about during the unit of work. We did a coffee wash over these to make them look old, and then the kids went over the outlines with black texta or oil pastel.

Early in the week we planned a "Olden Days School Session". My class brainstormed things we'd learnt about school in the past and considered some ways we could make this work in our classroom. I later looked at a book about school in the past - in hindsight, it would have been great to have looked at this with the kids prior to the day.

Setting Up for Olden Days School
On the day I dressed in a long brown skirt with a white blouse and tied my hair back in a bun. I stuck up sheets of chart paper around the room to represent blackboards (one grandparent told us she used to have blackboards all around the walls). I put a crayon on each desk to represent chalk. I also put a little medicine cup on each desk to represent ink wells. I found some old readers (only from the 1980s) and put them out on the desks - one per child. I separated the desks and put them in rows. I borrowed a big brass bell from one of my teaching partners. I set up a 'fireplace' at the front of the room using a couple of red/orange scarves.

Playing "School"
When the normal school bell rang I met my class in the usual place and rang the brass bell. I used a very 'strict' sounding voice to get them standing straight in line. I told them to come in, put their bags on their hooks and stand behind their desks. I then played the British Anthem (as it was also our anthem in those days) on the Smart Board and modelled standing with my hand over my heart and singing. The kids quickly followed my lead and joined in with the words on the Smart Board. (I know, I realise the irony in using the Smart Board!)
I marked the roll and then instructed students to begin reading from their readers. I called on them one at a time to stand and read aloud from their book. We then had a spelling lesson. Students were called on to move to the 'blackboards' around the room and to write the word that I said. After we had practiced many of the spelling words, we had our usual spelling test. This was soon followed with dictation. As they wrote, students dipped their pencils in their 'ink wells'.
We then went outside to do breathing and stretching exercises. This was quite quick and straight-forward and then we played "Ring a Ring a Rosey". On return to class we had a singing lesson (singing Daisy, Daisy), did some Geography with a big map of Australia, and recited some Maths times tables as a group and some students individually.
By this point it was only 10:30 and I was completely exhausted! We still had half and hour until lunch, but I decided it was time to call it quits.

Discussing the Differences
While the class munched on their fruit break we looked at the book I'd found about school in the past and discussed some of the things we'd experienced during the simulation. We worked on a class Venn Diagram to compare school today with school in the past.
I was amazed by how much written work we were able to get through in the session, but I was also aware of where this system was falling short. During the simulation my class weren't discussing anything or sharing any ideas. They were simply parroting what they knew I wanted to hear. When I called on some students to read aloud they felt really self conscious and couldn't benefit from my support in a 'safe' environment.

And so, we've come to the end of the unit. I've taken down some of the displays and am looking forward to starting the next unit of work.