Hunting for Treasure

Today I finally got around to trying geocaching. I've been hearing about other people in my PLN who have tried this out, and I thought it sounded like a bit of fun.

So what is geocaching? Geocaching is a treasure hunt with a GPS. You are given the location for a hidden cache and some clues to get you started. You head off with your GPS (or in my case, my iPhone) and start searching. The cache may vary, but generally consists of some form of logbook and may have small items you can trade.

To get started, you sign up for an account at www.geocaching.com. I also bought the Groundspeak Geocaching App for my iPhone ($12.99 but very helpful on my hunt). Groundspeak took my location and found some hidden geocache points close by. I followed the arrows, and then as I got closer, had to rely on my eyes and brain a lot more.

I took along my hubby, his mother and our dog. It was an adventure for all of us, and we were very glad to have found the two caches we set out to find.

If you haven't tried it out already, I recommend it as a fun way to spend some time.

Blogger Behind This Blog #7

A few weeks back we travelled up to Sydney for the City to Surf. For many years I've been meaning to get around to running this race, but for whatever reason, haven't pulled it off. This is a fourteen kilometre road race, beginning in Sydney City and ending at Bondi Beach.

This year I had a training program that I found online and I stuck pretty closely to it. It was a fairly hard training program - with a long run on Sunday, 30 minute run on Monday, intervals on Tuesday and medium run on Wednesday before I finally got to a rest day on Thursday. I found it tough, but always seemed to find the energy when I needed it, and didn't get sick at all, even when running about 50km in a week. (I used to get tired, sick, or sore when I went over 30km in a week). I tried to include some hills or mountain running in the program in preparation for the dreaded "heartbreak hill".

We stayed at a hotel in Sydney and hooked up with some friends who were also running the race. We went out for dinner together to load up on carbs and then hung out for a while at the hotel before crashing for the night.

On race day we met up for a hotel breakfast - something to sustain us but not overfill us - and headed down to the starting line at Hyde Park. There were people EVERYWHERE! With a record 75,000 competitors it was the world's biggest running event. Once in position we did a lot of waiting before we actually got to move anywhere, and even once we started to move, it was quite slow. As it was my first year running, I was in the 'blue' group which is made up of the masses - the slow people and the first timers.

For the first five kilometres I focused on running and weaving. I found that I couldn't go more than about ten strides before having to weave around walkers. I tried to use the footpaths as much as possible, but didn't want to be seen to be cheating either! Please understand - I'm not blaming the walkers, just expressing my frustration as a runner.


The weaving continued for most of the race and I don't feel I ever actually found my pace group. Usually in a race I find a point in time when I'm not overtaking people any more - when I'm with people of a like pace. I was feeling unusually strong throughout the race and was running well. I didn't stop for hydration as it was an opportunity to make greater headway through the crowds. I was listening to my run playlist on my iPod, which always helps to put more speed and power in my pace.

Heartbreak Hill didn't end up being so heartbreaking after all. I ran the whole thing and found it quite a non-event given my prior preparation. There was a great atmosphere with people along the sidelines cheering and runners in crazy costumes. The weather was perfect for running and I found the kilometres were flying by.

As I came to the last stretch along Bondi Beach I felt a tingle go through my body. I was almost there, and all these people were cheering us along. Crossing the finish line was a real let down. I felt almost disappointed. One moment I was running this race, enjoying the music and mood, and caught up in the weaving. The next moment it was all over. We walked through a couple of gates, picked up our medallions and then the weaving through crowds continued as we tried to get to the water stands to rehydrate.

I met up with the others from my group at our meeting point. It took awhile for everyone to find it and none of us were really sure what time we had run due to differences between race start time and our actual time. I had started my stopwatch at the beginning of the race, but was slow to press it at the finish line. I had run it in a good time - good enough to get me into a better starting position for next year. You can see photos of me running and a video of me finishing here.

We decided to cab it back to the hotel as the lines for the free buses were ridiculously long. We showered and ended the experience with a great steak lunch down at Darling Harbour.

Can't wait to do it all again next year, but training for the Canberra Times Fun Run in the meantime.

Friday Fun - 28/8/09

I want to pause for a moment to brag about the wonderful kids I teach. They are a lovely group of kids with an interest in learning and willingness to focus on a task and get the job done. I am impressed with how self-directed they are and also with how well they cooperate together. For the most part, I can trust them to do the right thing. The teachers who have been taking my classes while I do courses and executive duties tell me that they are delightful to work with.

On Monday I arrived at school to this message:

And this morning I was greeted by a student who had written me a poem.

I feel so spoilt to have the pleasure of working which such great kids.

Fun This Week:

ABC3 Promo
In Australia we are in the process of getting a selection of new free-to-air television channels. One of these will be ABC3, a television channel aimed at programming for children. They are currently calling for primary school students to create promo videos for their channel.
I was recently challenged by the need to create more opportunities for students to write for a real purpose and audience. When I saw this competition, I thought it would be a great opportunity for students to write/create a persuasive text for a real purpose.
This week students from both Year 4 classes formed small groups and began thinking about and planning their approach to this task. They are feeling very motivated by this project and (in my opinion) should be able to create some high quality video promos.
For more information about the competition, visit ABC3 By me.

Listening for the Author's Voice
Last weekend I was reflecting on how I teach my students to write. I was going through the First Steps Writing resources and considering what I'm doing well, what I'm not doing well, and how I want to implement First Steps further in my writing program. One thing I realised I wanted to put greater emphasis on, is the concept of personal voice.
Trent Lorcher at Bright Hub provides some tips on how to explain 'personal voice' to students. I shared this with my students and then we investigated the voice of different authors we know using the following chart:
Students then went on to do their reading for the week and jotted down notes about the voice of their selected author. They discussed this further with their Cooperative Reading Group on Tuesday. The next step is to help children to get a better sense of their own voice.

Bringing Dance to Life
We are going to perform some dances for our assembly next week. The students chose from two themes - 'flight' or 'fireworks'. We explored these themes earlier in the term and students had a chance to create dances in small groups. We are now asking them to fine-tune a dance to share with the whole school. They began practising their dances and we pulled out some scarves for students to use as costumes. It's beginning to look really effective and the kids are keen to perform next week.

Wakakiri
The Year 5/6 students performed in Wakakirri this week and did a really great job. Their dance was spectacular as were their costumes and backdrop. The rest of the school got to watch it on Monday afternoon.


Textiles and Design Homework Projects
Students have been handing in homework projects they created using their textile and design skills. Don't they look great? We plan to share these with the school community at the assembly next Friday.

Place Value and Multiplication Tables
This week we explored place value in Maths and practiced multiplication tables. There were some great interactive websites for this. The Crickweb Maths Teacher Toolkit had some handy place value activities. Woodlands have some great interactive times tables games. My favourite for using on the interactive whiteboard is Hit the Button. We also made our own whiteboard page. Students gave some digits from their phone numbers and I wrote these up on the board. We then ordered these four-digit numbers from smallest to largest, simply by touching and dragging them. You've got to love having an interactive whiteboard!
Students also played with a range of other manipulatives to practice their tables and place value including dice, tables wheels and wind-ups. They rotated through the activities over the week.

Making Movies - Second lesson
Students continued making their movies this week and some finished them, ready to share with parents at our upcoming Learning Journeys. We had a bit of a set-back this week, as many students wanted to include songs, and we needed to find something appropriate that wasn't protected with copyright.
I need to find some Creative Commons songs and collect them together into a common pool that students can select from. That will be one of my jobs this weekend. Any suggestions? I'm also looking for a site that collects "kid safe" songs and won't be blocked by my school.

Senior Sport
In Terms 2 and 3 students in Years 3-6 select a sport to attend on Friday afternoons. Options include things like tennis, indoor soccer, aerobics, circus and ten pin bowling. This term I have been going along to supervise ten pin bowling. The kids love it and are so supportive of one another. It's a great way to end each week.

Tech Tips Tuesday

This Week's Tip - IWB Pages

I've been playing with my Interactive Whiteboard more than usual this week. I designed some pages to give other teachers ideas for how they can use their boards. I'm trying to get teachers to turn their boards on at the start of the day so that they are more likely to continue to use them throughout the day. If you have a Smart Board, you can create similar pages of your own.

This first page is a fun way of marking the roll. I used this one for the teachers' staff meeting, but I use the same idea with my class photo. It is simple to make and the kids love it. When they arrive each day, they choose the face that best fits how they feel, and drag it over their face. I can see at a glance how students are feeling and who is yet to arrive. This is great for creating a class community and learning environment. To start fresh the next day, select the faces with a click and sweep action and delete.


To Make This Page:
Step 1: Scan or upload a class photo
Step 2: Insert photo
Step 3: Use text to add a heading
Step 4: Save emoticons from My Emoticons
Step 5: Insert emoticons and place beneath photo. Right-click on them and choose the "Infinite Clone" option.

For another option, you could make a simple line and students determine their mood on a scale between happy and sad. They write their initials to place themselves.


This page is for students to self-regulate as they are finishing their work. You write in the explicit quality criteria for the dot points and set the timer for the desired time. When students have finished the work they move their photo (not shown) or name across the line and hit the little sound icon (near the balloons) to hear a cheer.

To make this page:
Step 1: Make headings (I used a rectangle shape and then a text box)
Step 2: Divide page with a line
Step 3: Add bullet points (you need to put a space before pressing return/enter in order to keep the dot point)
Step 4: Insert timer and balloons and runner from the gallery (search for 'timer' and 'cheer' and 'race')
Step 5: Insert small photographs of students (100 x 75 pixels) or write/type names in individual text boxes.

Want-tos and Have-tos

Today I'm feeling torn between the want-tos and the have-tos. Spring is almost here and it has me feeling energised and inspired.

It's another gorgeous day and I want to: go for a bike ride, take photos, paint, garden, write blogs, play with the computer.

Unfortunately I have work I need to catch up on. I have to: do uni work, prepare lessons for the week, and prepare a PD session for Wednesday.

I'm thinking there may be some way of balancing the two. Maybe half an hour of a have-to can be rewarded with ten minutes of a want-to. I'll give it a shot and see if that will leave me feeling satisfied at the end of the day!