Going around the world with SMART

I had this idea over the summer and then forgot about it until I was watching the play earlier.

Once a week, each pupil in turn will receive our class travel journal (an A4 notebook). They need to decide where in the world they are going (it can be anywhere that hasn’t already been visited). In the journal they take a double page and record:
* How they’re going to travel from the last location to their destination and provide details (how long, cost etc).
* What they find there.

They can focus on whatever they like, and use whatever methods they like to record the information. They could write a story, draw a cartoon strip or a picture, do a mind map, produce a table, create a collage or write a report. They have one week to do it, and they pass it on to the next person who decides where they want to go, and so on and so forth.

Hopefully we can get round the class, and round the world, by the end of the year.

Anyone else fancy joining us in our travels?!?!

This went down really well with both Pupils this Morning and the Parents tonight - they really didn't like to be asked to use the Bluetooth set, but eventually warmed to it....they even managed a round of applause on one occasion too.

Kakuro - Interactive game

Another addictive game for Logic Smart

Logic smart game

Going to try this out tmrw...methinks!

Kakuro

Parents Evening seemed to go ok - they all seemed impressed by what we were doing, and by all accounts Dave did a really good job of covering everything in a really positve way in his talk. As a result they came to the room knowing a little bit about it, happy to try some stuff out, and those that did have have questions were pretty positive ones. Quite a few people stuck around for one-on-ones after, but I had Stevie G and Des hanging around as well so between us we got it sorted pretty quick.
Quite a few signed up for the Parents Email thing, although I'm still a little unsure what that's for!
Thanks to Nick for getting my tablet sorted out - although I think it's going to take a bit of practice before I've mastered the use of it ;0)

I'm off for some kip. Night Night!

Free download of Michael Morpurgo reading a new short story - From Guardian Unlimited:

Meeting Cézanne by Michael Morpurgo
This month, the former children's laureate publishes two new books: a novel for children, Alone on a Wide, Wide Sea, and Singing For Mrs Pettigrew, a collection of essays and short stories. He reads the first story in the book, in which a young boy visits his family in Provence and meets the world's greatest painter.

You can download the free mp3 from this page. I'll also put it on the shared patch tomorrow. (Running time: 18:51)

Resources for kids

Check this out!

Any mileage???

Regards

Nick

Just saw this and thought it was worth sharing!

Regards

Nick

SMART@OLCHFA

Car Bits Advert

Just for fun!

Regards

Nick

Found this!

Kensuke exercise

Regards

Nick

There was a web chat with Michael Morpurgo on the Guardian the other day. The questions and answers are up at http://educationtalk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@864.gn14lSZPCF9.0@.7759cd45/0

Might be a useful resource. Thought provoking, even if we don't use it in class.

Have added the "Guess Who & their Smart" game onto the network, in the introduction folder - please feel free to add more celebrities/famous people etc!!!!

Regards

Nick

Dragging and Dropping in Flash.

So while my previously stated ambition of getting my head round Flash over the summer never really happened (you know, busy with other stuff!!!) I have created drag and drop exercises to go with the starter lesson card sort. I know we've all got it done with the kids, but I was thinking of doing the card sort with the parents on Tuesday night, so I might try it out there.
They're on the patch, in SMART > MIs > Introduction. Give them a try and let me know if anyone comes across any problems :0D

Also, while I'm typing can I repeat my request for people to fix any typos they come across in the PowerPoints (or Word Documents for that matter). I'm sure that between us we can get them all zapped as we go through. Ta. :0)

Just had a double Smart lesson - a little behind you guys, but I'm getting there - Inro to Smarts - went really well with some pretty typical results - ie Alan Sugar(the smartest) and poor Kelly Holmes at the bottom. Anyway, used randomnised questions with my squidgy ball which they all wanted to catch and they all seemed to grasp the different SMARTs by the end of lesson 1.

Lesson 2 - I showed them an article off the BBC news website regarding Roald Dahls' birthday and we discussed what his favoured SMART could have been, also looked at Quentin Blake the illustrator of his books - it was just something to show them that they could think about this outside of the classroom. We then played a little game WHO AM I & WHAT SMART AM I. A little powerpoint which describes a person - pupils then have to guess who they are and their favoured SMART.

Finally, got them to identify their SMART areas, find a partner - discuss and feedback to the class. They then wrote up why they think they are that particular SMART.

Whewwwwww!

Regards

Nick

Word Smart

We made a start on word smart today. I should have followed my own advice and broken up the introduction to the smart, and the advice and jobs bit. As it was, they just kind of ran together and lasted too long.

Also tried the alphabet game. Weird, but they seemed to enjoy it! Me and Aysha were trying to open the same powerpoint at the same time which seemed to cause a few problems. I'll try and recreate that tomorrow and see if I can figure out how to get round any problems that get thrown up.

Just for fun! - Don't use with the pupils....take the couch potato test on the right>>>>>>

http://www.glasbergen.com/

Some nice Cartoons to kick off a lesson or two?

Regards

Nick

PS I've added the link for this to the side bar.

Intro to SMART Lesson

Just tried out the intro lesson, and it went ok. When we decided which SMART the people on the cards were I gave each group 8 post-it notes to label the cards, and when we did the 'Guess the Smart' activity at the end, we used the whiteboards, and it worked really well.
Only thing I forgot was the worksheets that go with the activity - if you haven't collected yours yet, there's a pile of them in the cupboard / office.

Oh - and I know I'm getting ahead of everyone else here, but 7DH took their profiles home, and I'm waiting for all of them to work their way in before we do that particular bit of cutting at stciking! :0s

Meeting Monday night - Conference centre????? - 3.30pm.

Regards

Nick

How to post?????

Simply post a comment with your email and I'll send you an invitation!!!

Regards

Nick

If you look to the right - I have added a few links, the one for Kaleidos should give you an idea of what is going to happen in a couple of weeks.......Revoloution!!!!!

Regards

Nick

Right.....Well, as mentioned to a few of you today, the first lesson ended up being only 15 minutes long - by the time I'd found the lost y7's wandering the corridor!!!!

So before I took them to lunch I got them to sit next to a person in their class they hadn't met yet, introduced the course, introduced myself via my website, talking about my family, interests, subjects I teach etc. They then had 5 minutes to talk to the person next to them and find out as much about them as possible. This proved popular with the pupils.

After the five minutes was up, I used randomnised questionning to get pupils to talk about their partner. We then finished for lunch!

When the class returned for lesson five, they were a lot more relaxed with me and we focused more on the MI test conducted earlier on in the week. I showed them my test result via the projector and spoke about what types of SMART I am good at and what SMARTs I need to improve on. They then cut out their test and stuck it into the passport. Pupils also folded a piece of card and designed a Name tag to be used for the next few lessons. We then looked through the passport and finished the day with a game - Flip, Flop, Fly - which they seemed to enjoy!!!

Hope this helps and Good luck with all your first lessons!

Best wishes,

Nick

Looking forward to a double lesson of Smart tmrw - aim to handout the booklet and their Multiple Intelligences result and during the second lesson attempt the First powerpoint with cards. Will let everyone know how it went!

Regards

Nick

Welcome!

See this as an area in which we can all talk about particularly bad lessons/good lessons, things that went well or any new ideas we can come up with for the course!

You can easily comment on this post, however if you sign up(it is free honest!) - You can then post your own blogs!!!!!!
Click on the Blogger logo to sign up!

Regards

Nick