New pack released: Trace and Make high frequency word activities.

It's not my usual stuff!

This one isn't designed specifically around CRTs because of why I made them in the first place.  I was making these up for my daughter at home for a bit of fun learning on top of what she was getting in school. I dropped some off for her class one day because I thought some of my daughters friends might like it too. The teachers loved them, the kids had a great time and they hinted that I'd be welcome to drop more off in the future. Since their classroom uses “Mioow Magic Words” these sheets are compatible with that system though it's certainly not required. I just worked around their lesson planning and this is the result!

Thanks Prue and Rhiannon for your enthusiasm and support!

This one is still a winner as a casual teacher in blocks of work or contracts.  It's hands on and engaging for prep to 2 but knowing where the students are up to can be difficult for daily-hire CRTs so it's not necessarily easy to pull out and make the appropriate sheets.

They're a combination trace over the word and cut and paste activity because I'm a great believer that "hands on" belongs in literacy in a high amount especially at the prep - 2 stage.  Part of our job as teachers is to give them a passion for literacy and hands-on is a good way to go about that so I actively look for ways to worm it in there on a frequent basis.

I'm also a great believer in putting in game or puzzle like elements not only as an aid to engagement but also to enhance problem-solving abilities and cognitive development.  This time it's in the jumbled words cut & paste activity.

This activity pack on my Teachers Pay Teachers store.

Regards,

Mel.

Resource Challenge log 2: Rough cut video sequence.

Do you remember the Sesame Street videos where they filmed someone doing their job, a group of children in an activity or a family activity and then had the children narrate over the top?  If not,

That's sort of where I want to go with this one (although I have decided to narrate myself rather than one of our kids) so the first decision has been made.  Many of these videos concentrate on sequence so of course it leads right into what I wanted to do with the video once it's done.  The first decision made it was time to start sorting through the video we took and....  Wow...

I never realised what really went into a short documentary/instructional video before.  This cut is very rough and I thought we'd be aiming to "get it right" at this point.  Not so...  My husband asked me the question;  if we get it "perfect" now and I want to add something later, how much more work is it going to be to add it in and get it "perfect" all over again?  Along with that comes the second question; how many times will you have to get it "perfect" before you're done?

So here's the rough cut sequence (low quality).

Even this was more work than I realised.  We had about 3 hours of video and cutting it back to 5-6 minutes, comparing different videos of the same step to see which one was the best and so on, was a lot more intensive that I thought...  I've seen in movies about making movies where they're all talking about 34 takes and 33 of them will end up on the "cutting room floor" but sort of didn't realise exactly what that meant until now.

I also realised after "finishing" this part that there's not actually any video of anyone turning the handle... Oops!  To which my husband replied "yes, that's what story-boarding is for"...  With the lesson soundly learnt, adding in that piece of video has been put onto the "to do" list. 

Being the resource challenge and I'm trying to put as many activities with it as possible it's not just the process of making the juice that I needed to consider.  What else did I have that I could put in that would allow other lessons to stem from it.  As you can see in the video I've included the bursting bottle so I can include some science (water expands as it freezes) as well as composting the left-over apple afterwards (sustainability). 

It's all a little more in-depth than I thought it would be, even with my husband helping to edit the video!  I thought this would be the quickest part and I think I may have been mistaken...

Regards,

Mel.

I've decided to make a log of one of my projects.

As a VIT CRT Network Coordinator we sometimes put on community events for members.  It just helps to make the learning process fun and enjoyable.  This time it's the CRT Resource Challenge which we ran last year too and it was a lot of fun.

If you're at all interested you can find out more about it here.

So last Christmas break (Summer here in Australia) we went to my in-laws and helped them make apple juice.  They do it every year and fill their freezer We videoed it to make a holiday DVD for the kids and I just thought "hey, that would be nice base for my challenge project".

Talking it over with my husband it seems like I'm about to learn an awful lot about exactly how much preparation goes into a resource like this!  At this point I had the thought that it might be a good idea to share my learning experience.  So here we go!

VLog 1:  the basic idea.

Enjoy your day everyone,

Mel.