Maths through Story- Day 1

Today was the turn of Y3/4 to visit Inspire2Learn at the Eston CLC.
Although my day started out in the jungle as a tapir with a monkey counting his coconuts, most of my time was spent as a police officer asking for the help of the public in catching the Phantom Cat Burglar (see previous post).
Children rarely disappoint and today was no exception. They were challenged but responded positively and many achieved the "eureka" moment. I was severely challenged too and I hope I matched their performance.
Thank you to everyone who helped make the day.
As promised, here are two "cat burglar's" in action.

Using Lift-the-Flap books in presentations

When I was writing my blog about "pop-up books", I didn't include lift-the-flap books (obviously). I have used odd pages from some of these publications in my presentations or as inspiration for my own slides. For example, when I'm talking about adaptation, and in particular camouflage, I might fade one image into another to engage the audience and have them "spot" the hidden animal.

Who's in the Jungle by H.J.Gondek Illus by C. Gilvan-Cartwright ISBN  to come

(Heh! Just opened another tab, imported my images and produced this gif with GIFPAL from Google. Very helpful.)
My favourite bit of software to show camouflage was Microscoft's Dangerous Creatures. Unfortunately, it doesn't work with modern operating systems. Why don't they re-do some of these wonderful programmes. Dorling Kindersley too!

Here's a list of life-the-flap books you might find useful with children:-
     Who's in the Jungle? - H.J. Gondek (   )
     Who's on the Farm? - H.J. Gondek (   )
     Look out, lion cub! - M. Coxon (   ) 
     Kitten finds a home - M. Coxon (   )
     Pingu - ?? (   ) BBC Children's Books
I will try and complete the details of these but my books are in a bit of a muddle at the moment.

Making pop-ups and telling stories

Eiffel Tower

Today I added to my collection of pop-up books with a copy of Great Buildings of the World. There are a lot of very basic and some very complex pop-up books available. 

Purnell (1984) ISBN 0 361 06410 1

I've made my own pop-up cards with children in the past, not as greetings cards but as ways into their imaginations and story-telling. When I did this we gave pupils a couple of easily constructed templates and a series of "monster" images. Once again, I've missed the boat with Halloween but maybe you could use the idea in the run up to Christmas.

Making the scene

Scene to be the subject of imaginative writing

One of the most reproduced pop-up books must be Jan Pienkowski's Haunted House. He has produced many other pop-up books in addition to illustrationed books and books with silouhettes. Ah! Light and Shadows Science rears its head. (See previous blog)

http://www.janpienkowski.com/
I might as well complete this blog with a series of other pop-up books that are well worth getting hold of.

SCIENCE 
The Human Body - J. Miller & D. Pelham (1983) 0-224-04210-6
The Facts of Life - J. Miller & D. Pelham (2000 edition) 158117093-9
Nature's Deadly Secrets - Frances Jones Electric Paper (1993) 1-897584-05-9
Nature's Little Builders - John Woodward Electric Paper (1995) 1-897584-07-5
Nature's Creatures of the Dark - David Taylor Electric Paper (1993) 1-897584-01-6
Nature's Savage Cats - Alice Burdett (1993) 1-897584-00-8
FUN
Fancy That! - Jan Pienkowski (1986) Orchard Books
little Monsters - Jan Pienkowski (1986) Orchard Books 1-85213-000-8
Dinner Time - Jan Pienkowski (1980) Orchard Books 1-85213-055-5
Christmas Kingdom - Jan Pienkowski (1991) Viking 
Bear's Busy Day - No author credited (2002) Top Story 0-7554-0248-0

I'll do a blog about the uses of Lift-the-Flap books soon.

Ivor Cutler : Eccentric Educator

Ivor Cutler died in 2006. He was adored by many and his Daily Mirror obituary read:-

Silly poet? Yes, much of his work was strange but it had wide appeal. Children liked the nonsense, he appeared in the Beatles' bit of nonsense The Magical Mystery Tour, John Peel championed his work and Alan McGee (boss of Creation Records) wrote fondly of him. JP was where I first came across him with his readings from "Letters from a Scotch Sitting Room". He wrote a number of books which were illustrated by Helen Oxenbury and Martin Honeysett. 

His LPs for Virgin included :-

I even have a DVD which tells his story and shows him in concert. He taught at Summerhill under A.S. Neill. If this means nothing to you, have a quick look on Wikipedia. The heady days of the 60's.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._S._Neill

Finally, if your a biologist like me, you've got to love someone who publishes a tiny little book of "stickers" called "Befriend a Bacterium".

Stick Figure Animation

The blog which has received most hits has been Flipbook Animation & PowerPoint. It's wonderful how animation (fooling your eyes) is a perennial favourite with all ages. I'm hoping to help set up an after-school Animation Club soon. In the past, working at a City Learning Centre, I've been spoilt for resources (software and hardware) but now, being independent I can't afford much of what I took for granted. Schools, also, don't have access to a lot of resources, so here's how to get started cheaply.

One I made

Free software is available for download to make Stick Figure animation:-

http://pivot-stickfigure-animator.en.softonic.com/

This is easy to pick up and a good starting point. It helps to have a theme when animating. I first used this programme when doing Healthy Living. Children made a variety of exercising figures against the background of their own school.

Sorry, don't know who to credit

How about animating some of these Olympic sports symbols from the Beijing Games.

If you're lucky enough to have iPods (or even iPads) for your pupils then there are free "lite" versions of Stick Figure animation programmes in the iStore.

Hope this is helpful. I'll post what we get up to at the Animation Club (if it gets off the ground).

PS Scratch is free and it can also be used for animation. Unfortunately, it can't be exported and used in other programmes, as far as I'm aware.
PPS I have looked at but not really tried Google's GIFPAL on line resource.

Hair in Funny Places and more - Babette Cole

Rocket reconstruction

I was in York today visiting the National Railway Museum but couldn't resist the urge to pop into one or two charity shops. I found a copy of Wind in the Willows illustrated by Babette Cole. It's also a pop-up book.










Firstly, Babette Cole and the blog title. I became aware of her through a series of books which were brilliant to use with children e.g. The Slimy Book and The Smelly Book. Being obsessive, I started to collect all her books and discovered some of them were really great teaching tools:-
     Mummy Laid An Egg - about where babies come from
     Hair in Funny Places - about puberty
     Two of everything - about grown ups
     

Cape (1999) ISBN 0224047639

Cape (1997) ISBN 0-22404-652-7

If I'd thought earlier in the week, I'd have mentioned her concertina pop-up book, Don't Go Out Tonight, to go with Halloween.

Hamish Hamilton (1982) ISBN 0 241 10732 6

For a complete list of Babette's books please visit her website.

http://www.babette-cole.com/

Maths Through Story - My biit

Next week I'm doing a couple of sessions for Inspire2Learn as part of their "Maths through Story" Learning Week. My contribution revolves around a resource I came across, in about 1990, called The Case of the Phantom Cat Burglar. This was part of Warwick Process Science. I'm afraid I can't tell you any more than that.
The original resource was written for Y7 so I've produced three differentiated versions (Y1/2, Y3/4 and Y5/6). I had some help in getting the levels right from  the Primary Maths Advisor.

Is the badge a mistake?

Lower level briefing sheet

Basically, the story involves an ex-Maths teacher who has committed a series of burglaries. The burglaries follow a series of patterns and it is up to the pupil to predict the next crime. At the highest level the prediction involves time, date, amount and address of the burglary. The latter was tricky for pupils so I've ammended it to make it easier.

If you'd like the resources I can email you the pdfs, just contact me:-
    docalanbrennan@gmail.com

Additional Resource : ISBN 1-86007-548-7 (2004)

This resource could lead you into a wider examination of Forensic Science. Our area is world famous for this, having the National Forensic Centre in County Durham and an international expert at Sunderland University.