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

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.

Friday Fun - 30/4/10

Term 2 started this week and it was nice to get back into things with a short week. Here are some of the highlights.

Fun This Week

Anzac Day Assembly

On Tuesday afternoon the Year 5/6 students hosted a special assembly in recognition of Anzac Day. The proceedings were very respectful and students maintained a very solemn attitude throughout.

Antonyms

We taught students about antonyms (more commonly thought of as opposites) and encouraged students to think of words that pair up. We had a cardboard jigsaw for students to use to extend this learning, and also found a couple of online games to practice pairing antonyms. One is at Do2Learn and another more complex one can be found here.

What's in the Box?

This term Year 2 students will be exploring different materials and considering their properties and how they may be changed. We began by presenting them with eight different items in shoe boxes. They reached into the box and felt the object and then wrote down words to describe the properties they identified. We used the following worksheet to record the investigation. Items we used included: glass, wood, concrete, rubber, aluminium, plastic, plasticine, and styrofoam.

What's in the box

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Art

For 2P and 1/2Rs art lesson we played with tones, textures and fractions to create an abstract piece of artwork. Students were given three coloured squares - black, grey, and white. They cut one of these in half creating two triangles; one in half creating rectangles; and one in quarters (squares or triangles). They used scrunched newspaper to splotch a large sheet of purple paper with yellow paint (for the background). I also gave them some strips of crepe paper streamers to twist or fold into lines. Students then added all their bits to the purple paper - creating a picture or pattern if desired or placing in an abstract design.

The Blogger Behind This Blog #8

I feel I owe my readers an explanation for my slackness with blogging this year. It's not that I have come to devalue blogging, or that I've given up my interest in teaching and technology - these are all still a part of who I am. However, something else has come to the fore. It has jiggled up the way I see the world and the way I use my time.

I'm sharing my body with a baby. I'm going to get to be a mummy.

For me this is huge. This has been my biggest dream for the longest time. In my perspective, this is bigger than anything I've done so far - bigger than teaching, bigger than running, bigger than living in New York City.

I'd always hoped that one day I might get my chance, but never really believed it would happen. I was busy filling my life with these other things, hoping that they might satisfy me instead. And while these have become an important part of who I am, I am very excited by what lies ahead. I feel that it is at the core of who I am.

So, my life has taken a bit of a turn. I'm no longer trying to forward my career in order to make up for being childless. I'm no longer looking for a running challenge to push me to my limits. I'm no longer balancing on the cutting edge of technology, waiting to try the latest and greatest. Instead, I'm trying to look after my family: my husband, my baby and myself. I'm taking time to rest and relax. I'm taking time to talk to my husband and plan for the future. I'm taking time to eat right and take the dog for a walk.

I plan to keep blogging, at least for now, but over the next couple of months I will be moving Friday Fun across to the School Website on our My Classes page. This will make it only accessible to parents, but will make it easier for other teachers to contribute to and continue once I go on maternity leave.

I want to thank those of you who have supported me with my blogging journey so far, and apologise for my inconsistency of late.

Cheers,

Penny