Lost and Found

When we returned from our overseas trip in the USA, we were disappointed to discover that somewhere we had misplaced our old camera, which we had given to our son as a learning camera. While disappointed, we shrugged it off as just one of those losses. The little guy, on the other hand, was not so willing to let it go and often talked of how he missed his camera. So, I decided to put in a little more effort toward finding it. And, alas, we found out that we had left it at The Donatello Hotel in San Francisco. Our stay there had been fantastic and the staff were very helpful with tracking down the camera and sending it back to us. It arrived this week and we were very excited to see the camera again and to get a glimpse of the trip through the eyes of my little guy. 

There were many photos like this:

And this funny one, which says to me: "What is that two-year-old doing with a camera?" (We don't know who this lady is, but she was one of the many photographing Lombard Street!)

And this one, my favourite, which we have unofficially named Reflections of Lombard Street

Now the little guy has got his camera back, he has moved on to learning about the zoom function and use of the flash. Yesterday he also took it further and learned about how the camera connects to the laptop to put the photos on our server! As one who loves to take photos, it's nice to know that he can get back to his experimenting without impinging on my own camera time!

It's fun to see what he captures, often by chance, in that moment when the shutter opens. One might wonder whether more guidance will help or hinder his ability to capture creative images. What do you think?

Tech Tips Tuesday

This guest post was written by education writer Karen Schweitzer. Karen is the About.com Guide to Business School. She also writes for PharmacyTechnicianCertification.com.

20 Free Summer School Resources for Students

Studies have shown that kids experience learning loss from grade to grade if they do not participate in educational activities on their summer break. Of course, convincing kids to study during the summer is no easy feat. Turning to the Internet may be one of the best ways to keep them engaged and interested in academic activities. When kids are online, they don't usually feel like they're studying--especially if they're having fun. Here are 20 sites your student can try throughout the summer.

Book Adventure - Designed for K-8 students, this free reading motivation program allows children to create their own book list, get reading recommendations, take quizzes about books they have read, and earn points and prizes for their efforts.

Big Universe - Big Universe is an award-winning site for both reluctant readers and creative kids. Registered members can read hundreds of books and take quizzes to test their comprehension. Big Universe also offers a unique tool that allows users to create, print, and publish animated e-books.

MeeGenius - MeeGenius is an online picture book library for kids. Library patrons can read books, personalize books with their own name, and share the books they read and personalize with other people.

Read Print - This online library provides more than 8,000 classic books, poems, and plays that can be read for free online. Children's favorites include Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and Little Women.

Librivox - Librivox is a good source for free audio books. The site's volunteers have recorded thousands of books that are in the public domain. MP3 and ogg files are available for many of the best-loved classes.

365 Pictures - 365 Pictures offers writing prompts to inspire creativity. A new photo prompt is published each day. Old prompts are also available in the site's archive.

Whyville - Whyville is a social learning community for kids. After becoming Whyville citizens, children can chat, play games, and learn about science, math, art, and more.

Seussville - Seussville provides a wide range of games based on Dr. Seuss' books. Site visitors can also listen to music and sign up to win free books.

Tutpup - This free, award-winning site provides a safe place for children to play educational games and challenge other students around the world. Game categories include spelling, times tables, basic math, and algebra.

Math Playground - Designed for elementary and middle school students, Math Playground offers math games, logic puzzles, word problems, math videos, and other resources to keep kids up-to-date on their math skills throughout the summer.

Arcademic Skill Builders - This site offers free single-player and multi-player arcade games that can be played online. All of the games are educational and designed to maintain and approve academic skills.

Canvastic.net - Canvastic.net if a web-based graphics tool for K-8 students. The free version has many useful features, but does include advertisements. An upgraded version without ads is available for a small fee.

Tux Paint - Tux Paint is an open source drawing program for children age 3 and up. The program provides easy-to-use drawing tools, sound effects, and a helpful cartoon mascot.

Crayola.com - Students can express their creativity and work on their art skills in Crayola's Creativity Center. The site offers a card maker, certificate maker, games, and more.

Stellarium - Stellarium is like a planetarium for your computer. The software is free to download and displays a realistic night sky on your desktop.

International Space Station - NASA offers a wide range of information about the International Space Station on their website. Students can view videos, photos, and details of current missions.

National Zoo Web Cams - Children can tour the Smithsonian Nation Zoological Park over the summer by tuning into the zoo's live web cams. Some of the animals that can be viewed include fish, otters, ferrets, cheetah, leopards, fishing cats, lions, tigers, pandas, gorillas, and flamingos.

FreeRice - This UN World Food Program site is good for older students who like trivia and community service. Every time a trivia question is answered correctly, rice is donated to the hungry. Trivia categories include art, chemistry, English, math, foreign languages, and geography.

Yugma - Yugma is a free web-based conferencing tool that would work well for students who need off-site tutoring over the summer. The tool allows users to share desktops and meet with up to 20 people at once.

BJ Pinchbeck's Homework Helper - BJ Pinchbeck's Homework Helper is an excellent place to find additional summer school resources. The site links to resources all over the web. Resource categories include art, music, computer science, English, math, science, health, foreign languages, and social studies.

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

Australian School Year - Explanation and Comparison

The Australian school year ties in with the calendar year. The year is broken into 4 terms (3 longer ones in Tasmania) of approximately 10 weeks, with about 2 weeks break between terms. The school year ends in December, just before Christmas. We enjoy our summer holiday at this time - usually about 5 or 6 weeks (depending on school or system agreements). This totals about 200 days (minus a few for public holidays). The school system in New Zealand is very similar.

As I taught a year in the USA, I have experience of that school year structure as well. I'd have to say that I'm biased toward Australia's structure, possibly because it's what I have always known.

• I like that it coincides with the calendar year - so feels 'tidy'.


• I like that the end of the year falls around Christmas time - it adds to the celebratory feel.


• I like that we teach for 10 weeks and then have two weeks off - this helps to break the year up into tidy segments and provides time for rejuvenation.

When I taught in a private school in the USA I felt like I was constantly working. I had a break for Christmas and Spring Break but these breaks didn't coincide with the school terms. I found it really strange to finish one term on a Friday and start a new term the following Monday. Because of the nature of my visa, I didn't get to enjoy the long summer break that is the bonus of teaching in the USA. I arrived 10 days before my start date and left 10 days after my finish date. My experience of teaching in the USA required a lot of adaptation and I don't think I quite achieved it in the year I had. I think I just generally like how 'tidy' the Australian system is in terms of organisation and rejuvenation.

What do you see as the pros and cons of these school year structures?

What is the school year structure like in your country (other than Australia, New Zealand, USA)?

The Year To Come - 2009

I am excited at the prospect of a new year and have already been busy thinking, dreaming and planning what 2009 will hold.

At school I will be teaching year 4 with a male teacher who I've worked well with in the past. Our Integrated Inquiry units will include the topics:

Personal Relationships - including a novel study of "Rowan of Rin" by Emily Rodda, nature conservation at a local ridge, and hopefully the development of a class blog. Through this unit students will learn about building and maintaining positive relationships; and roles and responsibilities within a community.

Australian History - including a focus on Aboriginal history prior to British colonisation and then the different challenges faced by settlers up until the time of federation. Through this unit I would like to see students developing timelines with Dipity and trying out video casts to explain Australian history.

Textiles and Design - looking at fabrics and their uses, exploring different techniques with textiles, and creating their own designs to suit a particular purpose. I would like to see children working in team project groups to liaise with others, determine needs and wants, and produce products to meet communicated needs eg. costumes for school dance performance, craft items for school fete and commemorative t-shirt for year co-hort.

The Solar System - including an understanding of apparent size/distance, gravitational pull, current information from space exploration and the causes of changes to the surface of the Earth or atmosphere. There are numerous interesting and useful websites to support this unit of work.

At school I will also be working on our Student Enrichment Policy - trying to link up, document and promote all the great things the school does to enrich student learning and growth. I am excited by this prospect because I really do feel the school does this so well.
I've also expressed an interest in helping the school find and purchase a class set of laptop computers. Given that we now have wireless internet access, I can't wait to get the students started on laptops!

In my 'computer world', I hope to connect more with my personal learning network - testing out my webcam and exploring "Flash Meetings". I want to do some more podcasting, for Link 4 Learning, but also consider its future direction. I've recently taken on a Blog Carnival, so hopefully will be able to maintain this throughout the year (the first edition will be out on Jan 7). I'm keen to get my Delicious accounts working for me even more than they are currently. And, I'm sure I'll be surprised by a number of other opportunities that will pop up.

On the home front, there will probably be renovations, and hopefully a 30th Birthday overseas trip for my husband. He wants to see the Northern Lights and also drive on the German Autobahn. With all of this, it will come down to how much we can save up and what we decide to prioritize! Speaking of prioritizing, I'd like to get back into my running - probably early morning, or home from work in the afternoons.

All in all, it's looking like a great year.