Great Ideas for Teachers (GIFT)

Final GIFT Network Meeting

gtideas — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 03:11:22 +0000

Hi Everyone

Well done on a wonderful effort to attend the meeting at such a busy time of year. Many great examples were shared and your positive input to the discussions made the session worthwhile for everyone.

What follows are some of materials, resources, ideas and links we discussed. Let me know if I left anything out or you have something else to contribute.

Christmas Ideas

FantasticThinkers Key Resource About All Things Christmas

HoHoHo

ChristmasThinkersKey

ChristmasCafeProblem

A nice activity which links art with maths. Students have a ‘budget’ with which to purchase materials to make an angel. Simple maths involved would suit juniors. http://www.successlink.org/GTI/lesson_unit-viewer.asp?lid=3823

A worksheet of simple maths sums, which serve to help with working out the code for Christmas jokes.http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/docs/christmas_jokes.doc

A neat little problem solving activity for middle and upper primary. Students have to choose a menu for the wise men based on certain conditions. http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/pdfs/Christmas_cafe_problem.pdf

Listening skills, oral language activitity. Students follow set instructions to decorate the Christmas treehttp://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/docs/Christmas_Tree_Thinking_Skills.doc

Great questions based on the Twelve days of Christmas, creating snowflakes, and activity based on area and perimeterhttp://www.primaryresources.co.uk/topic/pdfs/Christ-Maths.pdf

Great open ended maths activity using maths addition skills to make codes for Christmas words.http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/pdfs/cracker.pdf

A powerpoint template of an advent calender. You could get students to design their own page which could be revealed in the countdown to Christmas.http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/powerpoint/adventcalendar_template.ppt

Sudoko with Christmas symbols to print out.http://math.about.com/od/sudokupuzzles/ss/xmassud.htm

Online Christmas puzzle games:

Stained glass windows http://www.akidsmath.com/mathgames/stglass.html

Sudoko http://www.akidsmath.com/mathgames/sudoku/sudokuchistmsl.htm

Bright students love jokes. Here’s a good page.http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/santajokes.htm

Upper primary activity which nicely links Pascal’s Triangle with “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Hard, but worthwhile.http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/~judyann/LP/lessons/12.days.pascal.html

Picture puzzles of well know Christmas song titles. http://www.santalady.com/xmasgame/xmassong.html

A wonderful way to develop vocabulary and thinking skills by using Christmas song Titles. Can be used for all year levels.

http://canadaonline.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ/Ya&sdn=canadaonline&cdn=newsissues&tm=30&gps=103_759_1020_599&f=00&tt=14&bt=1&bts=1&zu=http%3A//www.education-world.com/a_lesson/03/lp327-02.shtml

Blooms Christmas Resourceshttp://www.theteacherscorner.net/seasonal/christmas/australian.htm

Other Resources/Ideas

Reading Eggs is worthwhile considering as an online interactive site in the mould of Mathletics, but very suited to K and PP students. You need to subscribe and there are schools who are doing this. Could also be a good extension strategy for individual students and parents looking for ideas to try at home.

http://readingeggs.com.au/

Build Your Wild Self. I think I mentioned it last time too. This is a great creative activity to do online and would really be suitable for those of you with interactive whiteboards. Gorgeous activity. Students love it.

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

Wordle is a great site which lets students visually play with words. Very popular with teachers.

www.wordle.com.au

A website recommended by colleagues as a good general site.

www.topmarks.co.uk

The following sites were recommnended by teachers particularly as having great tools and resources for those of you using interactive whiteboards.

www.crickweb.co.uk

www.interactivewhiteboard.net.au

www.home.scarlet.be/

www.starfall.com

Have a safe and wonderful Xmas. Hope to work with many of you in 2011.

GIFT Network Meeting Term 3

gtideas — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 10:49:21 +0000

Thanks to all of you who made it last night. There was a great mix of familiar and new faces. As promised here’s some “stuff”. Please comment or email me if I have forgotten something. I will be printing off some attendance certificates (for Term 2 participants too) and will send them to your schools.

I hope that some of this post might be useful for those of you who couldn’t make it too.

Firstly here are the links to the eTAGS documents.

eTAGSOverview

eTAGSEarlyChildhood

The Blooms Circle document can be downloaded here

BloomsWheel

I also spoke to some of you about Maker and the “Very Hungry Caterpillar” example to put a context on some of the aspects of the Model for you. There are some other examples too.

MakerModelExamples

Thanks to all of you who brought something to share.

Here’s the electronic version of Margo’s excellent information on all things Japanese and Technology. Thanks for your willingness to share your work.

JapanInformation

Thanks to Lee for her excellent Spelling Activity. Check the two version out. It is simple but so clever. A great little way to add an extra dimension for the bright sparks.

Spelling With a Maths Twist # 2

Spelling With A Maths Twist 3!

Here are the links recommended by Lynn and Judy. I thoroughly recommend you check them out. They are all excellent and offer some great interactive resources from the youngest students up into the older year levels. Love it.

Here’s Lauren’s link to the TES website.

http://www.tes.co.uk/

Hope I didn’t forget anyone.

Make the effort to learn how to use Delicious. It is worth the investment to get organised with all these great sites for easy future access.

http://www.delicious.com/

And finally, I showed you this one, but don’t forget to use it. My daughters loved playing with it tonight and I imagine it would be awesome on an interactive whiteboard. The language possibilities are endless.

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

GIFT Network Update

gtideas — Thu, 27 May 2010 16:14:16 +0000

Thanks to everyone who was able to make the meeting this week. I thought I would place some extra information about the Maker Model in this post for those of you who would like some more informtion.

The first link is just an electronic copy of the checklist provided.

MAKER MODEL CHECKLIST FOR COURSE – MASTER

The next document is a good concise explanation and summary of the various parts of the model.

The Maker Model 2009

Finally I have included Module 5 from the Gifted and Talented Education Professional Development Package produced by GERRIC. A substantial document but one which really shows how the Maker Model can be used to differentiate the curriclum in regular classrooms.

ExtModule5_PRIM-2

GIFT Box Review

gtideas — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 01:47:47 +0000

Thanks for those of you who managed to attend the review last week. I am collating your comments and thoughts and shall post a summary shortly. I will also provide this feedback to principals as well as forwarding your participation certificates. In the meantime I have provided an explanation and links to the various Christmas activities I gave you. Please don’t hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.

The Ho, Ho Ho sheet was the cover sheet for a range of great activities based on the Thinkers Key.

ChristmasThinkersKey2

The second sheet also considered a variety of activities based on the Thinkers Key

christmas thinkers key

The Green sheet showed some how to consider Christmas from the Blooms Model.

Christmas with Blooms

I also gave you a CD and didn’t get a chance to talk you through some of it. I’ll try here:

Advent Calender Template is a groovy way you can use PowerPoint to count down the days and get different children designing the slides for each day.

AdventCalenderTemplate

Some codes.

CodeCracker

Christmas_CodesPictures

Sudoku within the theme. These would be great for the Juniors.

A great activity for oral language work.

Christmas_Tree_OralInstructions

There were also some great links that I wanted to share that might give you some ideas.

This is the link for a writing lesson using bought Christmas Cards as the prompt

http://www.successlink.org/GTI/lesson_unit-viewer.asp?lid=3013

A nice activity which links art with maths. Students have a ‘budget’ with which to purchase materials to make an angel. Simple maths involved would suit juniors.

http://www.successlink.org/GTI/lesson_unit-viewer.asp?lid=3823

Bright students love jokes. Here’s a good page.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/santajokes.htm

Upper primary activity which nicely links Pascal’s Triangle with “The Twelve Days of Christmas”.

Hard, but worthwhile.

http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/~judyann/LP/lessons/12.days.pascal.html

Kinross Blooming

gtideas — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 11:22:45 +0000

In this post I have included some of the resources I shared during the PD session. Don’t forget that some of the files are also available on your school network or in the resources folder I have left in the staffroom. Thankyou again for the enthusiasm during the session. You made me feel at ease.

Here is the link to the example that shows how Bloom’s questions can be generated easily for any viewing activity.

http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/articles/bloom0405-3/bloompix.html

This is a great play using Bloom’s. I didn’t get the chance to talk about this but it might be useful for people who are interested in introducing Bloom’s more formally with their students and could be helpful in getting students to understand the different levels. It’s called “The Big Bad Wolf Meets the Blooms”

blooms-play3

Here’s an example of Bloom’s is used for the topic “Investigating a Book”. Great ideas to extend individual students who are avid readers.

investigate-a-book-the-blooming-smart-way1

This is useful to see the connections that can be made between Bloom’s and Science.

blooms-experiment-form1

Here’s a document that has attempted to link actions and products as they might relate to the various levels. Could be useful as a checklist to see the range of products that you are asking of your students.

blooms-planning-sheet1

The following link has a heap of units based on Bloom’s that you can easily download in word or pdf. A range of topics and year levels ranging from the zoo, frogs, politics to the Wizard of Oz.

http://www.cap.nsw.edu.au/teachers/tech_based_resources/mi_pages/index.htm

Please don’t hesitate to email me or post to this blog with any other ideas or resources that you have come across.

Merry Christmas

gtideas — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 13:06:22 +0000

Thanks for the opportunity to speak at today’s staff meeting. Here are the links to the resources I mentioned.

This is the link for a writing lesson using bought Christmas Cards as the prompt.http://www.successlink.org/GTI/lesson_unit-viewer.asp?lid=3013

A worksheet of simple maths sums, which serve to help with working out the code for Christmas jokes.http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/docs/christmas_jokes.doc

Listening skills, oral language activitity. Students follow set instructions to decorate the Christmas treehttp://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/docs/Christmas_Tree_Thinking_Skills.doc

Great questions based on the Twelve days of Christmas, creating snowflakes, and activity based on area and perimeterhttp://www.primaryresources.co.uk/topic/pdfs/Christ-Maths.pdf

Great open ended maths activity using maths addition skills to make codes for Christmas words.http://www.primaryresources.co.uk/other/pdfs/cracker.pdf

Sudoko with Christmas symbols to print out.http://math.about.com/od/sudokupuzzles/ss/xmassud.htm

Online Christmas puzzle games:

Stained glass windows http://www.akidsmath.com/mathgames/stglass.html

Sudoko http://www.akidsmath.com/mathgames/sudoku/sudokuchistmsl.htm

Bright students love jokes. Here’s a good page.http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/customs/Xmas/santajokes.htm

Upper primary activity which nicely links Pascal’s Triangle with “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Hard, but worthwhile.http://dimacs.rutgers.edu/~judyann/LP/lessons/12.days.pascal.html

Picture puzzles of well know Christmas song titles. http://www.santalady.com/xmasgame/xmassong.html

A wonderful way to develop vocabulary and thinking skills by using Christmas song Titles. Can be used for all year levels.

Blooms Christmas Resourceshttp://www.theteacherscorner.net/seasonal/christmas/australian.htm

CBP PD 1st Feb, 2008

gtideas — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 02:24:11 +0000

I really enjoyed the session. As I mentioned all of the information and links are mentioned throughout this blog. You will have to scan through to find them. It should be easy enough, but let me know if I mentioned something at the session that you think I should post on here.

The link is for Scratch. There are great resources ideas on the site. Let me know how you go.

www.scratch.mit.edu

Support for Parents

gtideas — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 05:31:33 +0000

At the network meeting we discussed the need to provide parents with assistance and support. Parenting gifted children is not easy and there are many resources to tap into. In particular I talked about GATCA. Here’s the link. It is also interesting from a teaching point of view.

http://www.gatcawa.org/

GIFT Network Meeting 30-10-07

gtideas — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 11:50:48 +0000

Thanks for your attendance at today’s meeting. As promised here is the information I promised I would post.

Blooms Taxonomy Information.

The first link provides great prompts for question and task ideas at the various levels. http://www.teachers.ash.org.au/researchskills/dalton.htm

The following link takes you to the site which has many complete units of study on a variety of themes, in Word format. http://www.cap.nsw.edu.au/teachers/tech_based_resources/MI_pages/INDEX.HTM

This link is a great example of how you can utilise Blooms in Viewing and Speaking and Listening.http://www.learnnc.org/lp/media/articles/bloom0405-3/bloompix_files/navigation.htm

There are other great resources on the web. If you want some more detailed information about Blooms then check out this powerpoint. A quick but great way to get yourself more familiar in this area.

http://www.kurwongbss.eq.edu.au/thinking/Bloom/bloomspres.ppt

Exploring Number Systems

gtideas — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 01:47:26 +0000

Comparing Number Systems Worksheet At previous PD sessions I have shared some activities I suggested about looking at different Number systems with students. I think this is a great topic to explore. So much of our time during Maths lessons is spent on place value and number work. For bright students who get it, this can be extremely frustrating and boring.

Providing opportunities for students to explore other number systems and letting them create their own can be a great way to manage a class. While you are working with the students who need it, others can still engage in the kind of work you are doing but by trying to apply other number systems.

I got some Year 2′s to investigate the Egyptian and Greek Number Systems. These are relatively simple. I have included a document which you can use with the students to let them compare the systems.

The links I have included provide you with some background info about them and the symbols that are used. Any of the upper primary maths texts should have information about them too. It’s really interesting to let the students use these number systems and discover and discuss them. Our system is known as the Hindu Arabic system. Getting the students to discuss how ours is more efficient is really worthwhile. These kinds of activities are a great springboard for them then to creat their own number systems by designing their own symbols.

http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Greek_numbers.html

http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Egyptian_numerals.html

Whilst these creative processes are fantastic, you need to make sure to take it that step further and provide plenty of opportunities for them to make use of their number systems in classroom situations. This then becomes an excellent way for them to test their creations and make modifications as required.