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AND WE'RE BACK

Welcome back! After a much needed break and a hectic start to the 2015 year, I am back. Ready to tackle anything. Including my IT guys incredible sense of humour.

Such clowns. Not.

So let's do this! 

Let's be awesome and not cry when Umalusi add 3 extra hours of 2nd and 3rd language to the curriculum that cuts into our iPad time. 

Let's not hate Eskom when they kill our WIFI lines. 

Let's be brave and try new apps. 

2015, we are ready! 

Happy apping! 

PHOTO COMPETITION

Our school is heavily invested in the movement of Thinking Skills. We have just been accredited as the first school in South Africa by the University of Exeter. It's kind of amazing. I really like it. It allows me to do cool things and I am constantly pulling out the "but it's for thinking skills" card.

But really, it such a cool way of teaching and I am incredibly grateful that I was able to take this on so early in my career. As part of making it authentic in in our school environment I held a photo competition. It was called LOOK UP. We wanted the girls to look at our school from a different perspective and to start looking up and noticing their surroundings. I launched it at THIS ASSEMBLY (still have no clue how I made it link, but I did, woo!)

We encouraged them to use iPads or iPhones, mostly for the use of filters and emailing purposes. We didn't limit the amount of filters they could use. You can see that many took the filter thing too far. Unfortunately filtering is a life skill you have to figure out for yourself. Some never will. 

^^ Montage of the entrants 

We were blown away by some of the entrants. You must remember this is primary school level and our 3rd place winner is 8 years old! 

^^ 1st                                                           ^^2nd                                                         ^^3rd   

Tons of fun. Super easy to execute. A nice school spirit building activity. 

Happy apping! (we back on the happy again) 

I'M FINE

Today went something a little like this...

^^ A look my class knows well .

It is so darn frustrating when working with little people who don't have emails. Getting stuff off iPads can be draining and when you use apps that aren't exactly educational and are really more "social", well thats when all the feels come out, quietly, hiding behind your laptop screen, hoping little ears don't hear/see the many choice curse words directed towards technology in general. 

Alas, we forge on. Hoping for the best, never being mentally prepared for the worst. 

Apping (no happy today)

COMPOUND WORDS | FOXGLOVES

Time:                        2 x 1 hour lessons

Level:                       Medium/ Hard

Would I do it again:   I always do ;) 

This lesson has been a few years in the making. It was my very first "no wifi situation" lesson back in 2012. As you can gather, there was no wifi, we were learning about compound words and the foxgloves around my school were beautiful. Originally I asked the girls to photograph and research on Google all about the origin and name of foxgloves. However recently my school has become a Thinking School, and a part of this programme is making students more mindful when approaching their learning. 

I started the lesson off with a question "What is a foxglove?" Only 1 girl knew the answer and I bribed her for her silence. I made them write their answers before we went outside. 

After the observation I asked the next question "Why is it called a foxglove?" They then had to observe and deduct (Blooms) from what they saw and write an answer to the question. 

We then went outside and took some photo's of the foxgloves as they would need these for their Explain Everything movie. We also went on google images to download some other photo's needed for the presentation (this should actually be a lesson on it's own: live and learn.) They used these photo's to create a Flow Map for the structure of their presentation. 

^^ Nothing pleases an 8 year old more than seeing herself on a screen. 

^^ Flow Map: We are still working on how these work. 

As we had already used Explain Everything once before, I asked the girls to do this one completely on their own. Of course I did help when needed and they were required to put all their information they gathered in, but the layout and picture cropping, typing, spelling (no judgies hey!) record etc was all to be done on their own. 

And I was proud. 

We even started a mini theme table:

^^ Class circle map: Define in context all you now about Foxgloves. 

*Extension activity 

The next day, a few girls noticed the similarity between Jacarandas and Foxgloves. We then used a double bubble map to compare and contrast the similarities and differences. They had to draw on past knowledge (Habits of Mind) to complete this task. 

^^ "Walk of silence" (never really that silent in my class)

^^ Comparing and contrasting with a double bubble map 

All in all I would say this lesson improves every year. I like the fact that it changes with each group, I also like that the girls actually take some time to find these connections between language and their environment. If you don't have an abundance of foxgloves like we do you could always swop out for something like Iceberg rose bushes or Yellowwood tree. Some of the girls are even using the app at home and bringing their information creations to school for show 'n tell. Win. 

Happy apping! 

IMOVIE

Last week I had the pleasure of using iMovie for my assembly. I will sing it from the rooftops I LOVE THIS APP. Really, the options are limitless and it is actually easier to use it on an iPad than the Mac. Although not educational at all, they were delivered in an educational environment and so I will put it on here because as teachers we need aaaallll the ideas we can get.

^^ Bandana day promo 

^^ My assembly on resilience 

Play around with it, the possibilities are endless!

Happy apping! 

SYMMETRY

Time:                         1 hour
Level:                         Easy
Would I do it again?      Yes

Another emergency lesson took place a few weeks back. For some reason I could not locate half the iPads. Ipads generally work better when they are not being shared. I only had half, so I needed a beneficial sharing lesson.

I had seen a beautiful picture on Pinterest that I was very keen to try out with my girls for art, but with the MIA ipads and lack of lesson plan for the next hour I had to be a little more flexible.

In Maths we have been learning about Symmetry. Using this picture as inspiration I gave them free range of the design they were to make. Using the building blocks and unifix blocks (not so pretty, but I like my job, I was not going to raid the gardens for the sake of a lesson: ok maybe I would. Rebel) the instructions were simple. Make a symmetrical pattern and take a photo from above.

Pinterest picture. Obviously mine looked nowhere as good. 

Pro Tip: Explain how to take a picture from above. Apparently this is not something the millennials have been born with (I always assume they know everything digital).  Multiple retakes were needed, and I mean multiple.

I was really happy with most of the results, it was an excellent lesson on how to build symmetrical patterns, as most of my girls rushed into the activity with little thought and struggled to make their pattern symmetrical.

The girls were chuffed. I was chuffed. We have no more ink in the printer.

Happy apping!