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Guiness Book of World Records

Guiness Book of World Records Day was on Friday so we celebrated by having a record smashing competition.

Here are the links I found useful:

• Press Release
  
• Activity Ideas - we did activities like balancing spoons on the face, flipping coins, leapfrog, forward rolls, most pushups,
  
• Also cool to check out - longest bicycle, tallest rideable motorbike, car balanced on head,
  

Tags: activities art fun games
Posted at 09:06PM Nov 16, 2008 by Concetta Gotlieb  | 

Art made by the environment

This video from the Make blog got me thinking about projects for kids.  Imagine doing a weather chart in the same way with kids.  Each day dip a piece of string into some paint in different shades marking the amount of sunshine, stick the pieces of string onto containers and then looking at the results.  Technology, art, science, environment, literacy all in one.  I think this is what digital literacy is about.  Using all kinds of mediums and media to communicate messages large and small.  Very cool Thomas Traxier.

Tags: video science literacy weather art
Posted at 08:13PM Nov 13, 2008 by Concetta Gotlieb  | 

Digital cameras in the classroom: a multi-purpose tool.

I'm starting to wonder what would happen if we replaced one interactive whiteboard with a class set or maybe one between 2 of digital cameras.  The computer isn't the only way we interact with technology.  Digital camera's have made pictures part of the human experienced - used in a variety of ways from documenting our belongings for insurance purposes to recording a recount of events to photo journalism and art and even beautiful photo essays.

So I'm going to continue to use the one camera we have in our school to it's absolute maximum.  Here The Digital Photography School has tips on digital photography with kids/students.

• Experiment
• Check backgrounds
• Hold camera straight
• How to hold the camera
• Get in close
• Take lots of pictures
• Balance between taking pictures of people, things and places
• Find a point of interest
• Rule of thirds
• Review the pics with them
• Focal lock
• Different modes for different situations
• Exposure

Tags: photography technology resource art ideas cameras showme
Posted at 04:42PM Oct 09, 2008 by Concetta Gotlieb  | 

Music Lesson - Three Little Birdies by Bob Marley

Today I used the Bob Marley song Three Little Birdies as the base for activities with infants children.  I played them the song.  We learnt some of the words.  Then we made birdie masks and performed the song.  I did it with 4 classes each lesson was about 1hr long.  With the kindergarten students I also got them to say a sentence about where their little birdie visited.

The kids really enjoyed it but it would have been much better over a couple of lessons.  Particularly organising for the final performance after everyone had fun relaxing and creating masks and singing was a little bit of a challenge.

This video shows the best bits from the lessons.   The first segment shows a year one class who added some hand flapping birdie actions to the performance which I really liked.

Tags: music infants showme art
Posted at 07:56PM Jul 01, 2008 by Concetta Gotlieb  | 

Year 2 Literacy and Numeracy Resource Links

I thought I was going to be teaching a Year 2 class today.  I found these resources to use:

• Mathlionaire - Maths Game
• BBC Bitesize - Literacy Interactives, story beginnings and endings
• Discovery Puzzles - Picture puzzles, good quality
• National Gallery of Art Kids - art interactives
  

Tags: numeracy links literacy puzzles art
Posted at 05:20PM Jul 01, 2008 by Concetta Gotlieb  |