white box art

A cool artistic video, good for inspiring intro to art leson?

White Box by Makoto Yabuki

http://vimeo.com/5471619

courtesy of Bloglines and Drawn!

Educ 512 Power Point

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Educ 512 Power Point

View more presentations from Joel Nauton.

My 1st VideoCast

...And just like my first bicycle ride, my first kiss, my first drive on the freeway with a stick-shift, it's an extremely wobbly, lurching, spastic mess... and there's no real video in it, you have to move your eyes back and forth real quick to give the illusion of video.

WolframAlpha

One of the 1st things I'm going to look up after posting this? What the heck is a "wolfram alpha" ?!?

What it is, thanks to Ms. Michetti at connect. create. question. is the next level of search engine/encyclopedia, a possibly overwhelming fount of information, the answer to my constant exhortation to sons and students of "look it up!" It is WolframAlpha .

There is a cool "Overview Video" that shows a ton of examples, some way over my head, but it looks amazing with the potential to really engage students in exploring and discerning information, rather than simply copying text from Wikipedia. I'm going to try some real world, relevant to 2nd-6th grade topics and see what happens...

the 10 minutes later update... Well, found out I have 113th ranked name for US births; lots of info on "Boston Red Sox", "Transformers", "Grizzly Bear" and today's date (sunset scheduled for 8:01) but not so much for "Tony Hawk", "Kings of Leon", or even "American Revolution"... definitely like the Scrabble/crossword puzzle cheating assisting potential: put in a word with missing letters, it supplies the possibilities.

Let me know what you think. How can this be used in the classroom?

Real Classroom Ideas website

http://realclassroomideas.com/index.html

a few amazon ads but a ton of quality FREE stuff...

haiku! gesundheit...

only 5 more weeks and I'll have my credential! Well, I suppose I could fail my CPR class and that would hold things up a bit, but I've inflated the lungs on those dummies so many times they know what flavor of gum I chew...

3rd grade is a crack-up; I really do have to turn away sometimes to keep from laughing at the pouting lips or dramatic attempts at self-control when their world comes crashing down with a wrong answer (or when they have to go to the bathroom). I love the serious, concerned concentration faces too, especially when their fingers are moving rapidly adding up 6 x 7.

Did a good lesson with goldfish crackers and adding fractions, very few fish were eaten and/or pulverized before their time. Next up is Haiku, which I've never done or studied or understood (regrettably, I'm not a big poetry fan), and I'll be observed and probably videotaped for good ol' California's requirements.

Dang, just realized that means I need to lose 10 lbs by Thursday!

Courtesy of TEACHERNINJA comes the trip of the day, reminiscent of the old Disneyland submarine ride: go eye-to-eye with a life-size blue whale!

Also love this stuff over at So You Want to Teach? ... the 4th grade reading with dramatic voices and gestures is awesome. Anyone use "Power Teaching" ?

took the words right out of my mouth...

... and my heart, too. An excellent post here at The Cool Cat Teacher Blog , I haven't had my own first week of school as an official teacher, but can already say I want to teach for the rest of my life.

3rd grade has been much slower and quieter, so far, compared to 5th. I'm sure it's largely due to test prep, test prep, test prep, review of test prep, and more test prep. Practice test comes Mon, then finally! the real thing.

New moon is no moon

So I sent the students home this weekend with a chart to fill in drawings of the moon as they see it each night, and then I figure I should do my own chart as well (modeling!)... last night, completely cloudy; tonight, can't find the darn thing. What's going on here?

Oops -- new moon. They can search all they want, but won't find a thing. Maybe a sliver tomorrow? Ok, so I should have timed the lesson a bit better, but now it's an opportunity to demonstrate why all their pages are blank...

Solar System to Scale

Damn, this is one huuuuuuuuge universe we live in!

My class is studying the solar system, which I can't claim to be an expert in but love learning about-- I get so totally blown away and amazed by some of the fantastically un-mind-wrappable concepts and facts, and it's so cool to share things with students and see them be amazed as well. One of my students today was shocked to realize "we" were out in space, just like all the other planets. I asked her where she thought we were, and as the words "on the ground" came out I could see the light bulb flicker (and stay) on.

so I want to do one of those cool Solar System to Scale projects where the students can go outside and place (chalk? clay?) sun and planet models and see just how far apart everything really is -- any suggestions?

I did see that for most models, even the smallest, the nearest star is still apprx 4000 miles away! See what I mean? Wow!

so quiet, so cute, so small

Ah, 3rd graders...



btw, the most common phrase heard today* -- not "good morning" or "welcome back" but "44 days!" as in the number of school days until summer break. And it was an overwhelming landslide, not even close...



*at least until the temps hit triple digits, Praise the Lord for air conditioning!

power teaching?

My first thought was WOW! -- this is how I want to teach! The students are paying attention, engaged, hanging on her every word, teaching each other...

Does it work? The more I watch I wonder if it's too busy, are the students just playing a game, talking all at once (some are even talking to classmate's backs?)... are they actually learning the material? I realize "test" is a dirty word among classroom-level educators, but does this method/style produce positive results?

Inquiring minds need to look into this further...*

*farther?

***

one hour and 52 videos later...

It helps to start at the beginning; I would love to sit in a classroom all day and observe this in action.