New Header Photo

With a new year comes a new header photo. The previous header (if you recall) was a photo of all the students in LA19, however, with the school year now over and a new bunch of enthusiastic open minds about to charge through my door it was necessary to revert to my original header. The new one (in keeping with our strict copyright and creative rules) is an image I took myself in a town called Margaret River in the south of Western Australia. It seemed very iconic when I saw it, very Australian; a combi van in front of karri trees. Anyway, this will remain in place until I can organise a new photo with my new students – whoever they will be!

Christmas Day

I know this is totally unrelated to education, but I thought I’d follow the example of one of our most outstanding bloggers, Georgia, and write about my Christmas day.

To begin with I did very well with my presents getting a huge amount of DVDs to quench my current obsession with old British television series. These included The New Avengers, Colditz, Minder, Doctor Who (no surprises there) and some excellent documentaries by heroes of mine such as the brilliant Stephen Hawking and the irrepressible Jeremy Clarkson. I also got Fremantle Dockers tee-shirts, aftershave, and an M & M gumball style machine. Not a bad haul if I do say so myself.

Following our present opening we made our way to our usual family gathering in Waroona where we chilled for the rest of the day and into Boxing day on a beautiful 6 acre block overlooking the stunning countryside. We then had a fabulous breakfast barbecue on the banks of the Waroona Weir before heading home to clear up the mess we’d left from opening our presents. All in all a fabulous Christmas.

Christmas Day

Christmas Day

Christmas Traditions

This is a light-hearted Christmas post.

Ever wondered where some of our most loved Christmas traditions originated? Well, the plucky chaps at Mental Floss have endeavoured to find out. Personally, I find it amazing that we still practice some of the same traditions which began thousands of years ago.

For attribution click the “i” at the top of the video.

The End!

Well, I haven’t posted anything for quite a few weeks now, but December has been one busy, busy month. The nature of the end of year workload is the only valid excuse I can really come up with, but it’s a fair one, as any teacher can tell you.
Anyway, the fabulous students of LA19 have finally left the building – some forever as they move on to other towns and other schools. I can honestly say that this year’s bunch have been the most successful bloggers I have ever had the pleasure to work with. The value of the blogs has again been obvious to me and has justified my use of them in the classroom. Naturally, like all classroom activities, not all students are going to be as keen and successful as each other and that is perhaps something I need to take on board for when I roll out a new class next year. Those students who find difficulty fulfilling workload demands are generally the least proactive bloggers and I think this is an area I may review in 2014. However, having said that, the new format of Edublogs and the costs involved may be a deciding factor when the final decisions need to be made.

Good luck to the LA19 class of 2013, wherever you may end up. Have a safe and fun summer holiday and for those returning to school in 2014 I’ll see you in February.

Blog Of The Week

This is something I haven’t done in a while, but I’ve been inspired by Monika (an incredibly prolific blogger herself) who has taken on the role of awarding “Blog Of The Week” on her own blog. Well, this time I’m awarding it to Callen who, since November the 27th, has really stepped up and produced some great posts (including Doctor Who and an amazing guitar solo). Have a look.

Blogging Task #13 (Unlucky?)

The end of the school year is now so close we can almost touch it. For those not from Australia, the school year runs from February to late December when we break for our summer holidays and Christmas. As of Wednesday 4th December we have only 12 school days left. For that reason we need to have a review of the year. This post is all about the things you’ve enjoyed, achieved, created, excelled at, in fact anything POSITIVE that you’ll take away with you as key memories from 2013. I’d like this to be a detailed post (especially as for some of you it may be your last) with plenty of descriptions and explanations from your own year. You may even wish to mention your hopes for 2014. Have a look at the points below to give you some ideas (there are many more, but we’ve been so busy I can’t remember everything).

  • Activities e.g. iPad Brushes art, Meccano, podcasts, blogs…
  • Excursions e.g. King’s Park, Soccer, AFL, Swimming, Interschool…
  • Long Programmes e.g. My Place, Boom
  • Subjects e.g. Maths, Phys. Ed., Art, Music, English
  • Friendships
  • Achievements
  • Successes

Maths Capacity

We recently grabbed our buckets of water, our measuring jugs and an armful of various sized containers and attempted to improve our skills in estimating capacity. We first used our existing knowledge to write down our best estimates of how much water each container could hold. Then, we split into groups to complete our measurements and find out just how far away our original understandings were. The goal for this activity wasn’t to be the closest, but for each student to develop a more realistic understanding of estimating capacity. Some were close, some were way out, but in the end all the students felt they had developed their skills.

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