I think one of the best ways to create an interesting blog is to vary the topics you write about. I’m always telling my students this and encouraging them to write about things they do at home and on the weekend, but I very rarely take my own advice. Well, I had such a great weekend that, for once, I thought I’d write a post about it.

Saturday was an awesome day which we spent in Fremantle, having dinner, shopping and waving my daughters off on a three day cruise. However, even better was to come on Sunday as Mr Bakreski (a fellow teacher) and I took a trip to Gingin to visit the British car show. Having grown up in England and having worked on cars for a few years this show was a fabulous, nostalgic treat. We had an awesome day and I took quite a few pictures of the high quality vehicles on show. See if you (or your parents) recognise any.

 

 

As part of our English activities we’ve just begun using Meccano in the classroom. Meccano is such a fabulous tool with a huge educational value. Besides helping the students develop their problem solving skills and their construction skills, it is also great for their literacy development. The students are having to cooperate in pairs (boy and girl) as they attempt to read, decipher and follow the fairly complex instructions. The instructions are all visual, the type that Ikea tend to use, but a lot more detailed and complex with steps having to be followed in clear stages. As well as requiring good reading skills, the students have to use clear, polite and constructive conversation skills to overcome any difficulties they encounter. When finished they should have a great model with battery operated, working parts.

There are so many reasons that I use blogging in the classroom and all of them are positive. I can’t really say that some of the reasons are more important than others, they’re all so different that it’s not fair to compare them to each other. However, some have more serious consequences than others, in particular the ones that can get you into trouble from infringing copyright law. In class we constantly talk about the importance of making sure that any images we use are our own and that we never just take an image from Google and stick it on our blogs. I came across this scary story recently from a blogger who was threatened with an $8,000 fine for using an image from Google. After hiring lawyers and going through a stressful legal process, he ended up having to pay $3,000 to the owner of the image. Simply put, lawyers are constantly fishing around the internet (particularly blogs) for people who are using images that aren’t their own, just so they can approach the owner of the image and drum up some business for themselves. My point here is it just isn’t worth the risk. Check your blogs and change or delete any posts with images that aren’t yours. This is one tough lesson we don’t want to have to learn!

As we’re currently on our two week, end of term one break, there’s really not a great deal happening to write about. So I’m going to take this opportunity to post a few more of the students Selfie Art photo’s. The students did a remarkable job and showed a truly creative flair.

 

One of the great things about students having a blog is that their writing doesn’t just sit locked up in a book in a closed drawer, but it’s published for the whole world to see. This means, if they’re very lucky, other students from around the world can read their work and post a friendly comment. This is great collaboration and provides the students with a purpose to write and the motivation to present their highest standards. It also means that they have a great opportunity to make contact with new friends from a different country and culture.

This year we’ve been very fortunate once again to have our friends from St Lawrence School near Montreal in Quebec, Canada, visit our blogs and post some thoughtful and kind comments. In return, our students have visited their blogs and also commented. We’d like to thank the fabulous St Lawrence students and Ms Theriault for making our blogging experience fun and purposeful. You can visit them here.

We were very lucky this year in having our Easter break outside the usual school holiday dates, giving us extra holidays. Whilst some of the students seem to have been busy having fun, my break has been happily uneventful. Apart from a little gardening (we have a verge clearance this week), I managed a brief visit to Jurien Bay and enjoyed a few meals out at local restaurants. I also added the final touches to a painting of my daughters. It was my first attempt at watercolours and I only used 2 colours, red and blue. Check out the pictures below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This new blogging task isn’t for the students, it’s for the parents! This is a great way for parents to have a look at and get involved with their child’s online life. Although, having introduced it as a “parent task” I’d be more than happy for any close, concerned relative of the students to get involved with our blogs. Parents (grandparents, aunts, uncles…), you can either write a post or comment on your child’s blog (I’m sure they won’t mind if you ask them nicely) or leave a comment on this one. The post could be about yourselves, your work, a special moment from your own school life, an event from your past, a hobby, pastime or skill, in fact anything you like. It could even be to do with a news story, something which may spark some thoughts for the students. Perhaps, if you migrated to Australia, you could tell us about where you came from. A comment on this blog would also be welcome. Before you start, however, make sure you first ask your child about our strict safety and commenting rules. Good luck and have fun!