Aladdin's Lamp

With the Arabian Nights coming up next term, I thought I'd have no problem picking up a cheap Aladdin's lamp. I've been looking for weeks and then found a small lamp for £12.50 in a secondhand/antique shop in Morpeth.

I'm pleased with it but now have to work it into what I'd like to do - digital storytelling.

"Brontosaurus" - another great Science read

I recently blogged about a really good Science book on the elements (The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean). I didn't expect to recommend another book so soon. Thanks to my wife for keeping the supply going.
The latest book is "My Beloved Brontosaurus" by Brian Switek.

Scientific American/Farrar, Strauss & Giroux (2013) ISBN 978-0-374-13506-5 

People are always telling me how children love Dinosaurs and what a good teaching topic they are. How come, in my 12 years of involvement with primary schools, I've only been asked to enthuse about dinosaurs once? 
This book not only rekindled my interest, it also brought me (almost) up-to -date with developments in the past 20-30 years that I'd missed. It was also, in my opinion, incredibly well-balanced - sensible.
It led me to looking into my library and finding these three books to recommend to you:-

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Harper Collins (2000) ISBN0-00-257012-2

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The first tells of the story of the Chicxulub impact crater and its role in the demise of the dinosaurs. The other two are by Richard Fortey, one on the fossils that grabbed him in his youth and the other an ambitious account of life on earth. 

Robots & Rockets

Just before the summer, I was asked by a school to provide some ideas for their "Inventions" topic. Two topics which leapt to mind were Rockets and Robots. Rockets because it links in with Space, which is a perennial favourite and has lots of practical work, and Robots because of the increased interest in programming i.e. controlling robots.

In the Rockets work, we covered their history from ancient China through fireworks to V2s and the Space Race. We used balloon rockets on string and had a good go with stomp rockets before using Rokit kits to investigate pressurized water rockets. All went down really well as they involved hands-on for the children. The only damp squib (firework reference) was the first go with Rokit kits when my old kit didn't cut it. Second time around though, job done.
There is so much can be gained from this topic in terms of Science, Maths, History and even Literacy.

Balloon rocket. A stomp rocket attached to a string was far more ffective.

Robots was more of a challenge for me but I was really pleased with the way things went. My presentation made the children compare humans and robots (Somerset Thinking Skills Course) and devise their own Laws of Robotics, after Isaac Asimov. The resources we used included remote-control toys (Daleks, dinosaurs), iPad apps and Lego.

IEEE Spectrum Robots app - free download, excellent.

Having just bought 5 sets of Lego WeDo, I had to get the children using them. They were a hit with both children and staff despite limitations of access to software as I only have a single user licence. We also had quite a successful go with Lego Mindstorms. 
I didn't get round to introducing the children and staff to Scratch but, hopefully, I'll have laid the groundwork for that in the future.

We also mentioned in passing Dr Who, Wall-E, Metropolis, I-Robot, K'nex and several other resources worthy of more detailed study.

Orpheus, Euridyce and The Wall

Anais Mitchell is an american folk/contemporary singer with a quirky voice. I have a CD of hers called Young Man in America (2012) and one with her and Jefferson Hamer (2013) singing some of the Child Ballads. So, when I saw Hadestown, with another of my favourite female singers, Ani DiFranco, I had to buy and try. I was not disappointed.

righteous babe records RBR070-DE (2010)

The CD is a "folk opera" based on the legend of Orpheus & Euridyce. It works well as a whole but what grabbed my attention was the track "Why we build the wall". I immediately saw the wall from the Pink Floyd cartoon being built and then started singing "I built the wall and I will be the one to knock it down" (REM). Finally, I regressed totally and started to sing "Out of the land of shadows and darkness, we were returning towards the morning light....", the introductory words to From the Underworld by The Herd (Peter Frampton's first group).
I can see a way of using these songs in PHSE as well as when teaching the Ancient Greeks. 
With regard to the latter, I then went back and found Marcia William's comic strip version of the story from "Greek Myths for Younger Children" (Walker Books).

"But then her living form faded and Eurydice became a ghost of the Underworld"

Virunga - join the campaign

WWF have a new high profile campaign to save the Virunga National Park.
Fabulous wildlife, scenery and volcanoes. The free wallpapers on their website illustrate this.

Join them.       virunga@wwfint.org

I've know about Virunga for quite a while not through its beauty but through an African band called Orchestre Virunga. Wish I'd delved deeper at the time.

There is only one Earth - let's stop destroying it.

Kinetic Creatures, Lego and Scratch

I was browsing Gizmodo on my Xoom and came across Kinetic Creatures and their creations -  a rhino, an elephant and a giraffe. They looked really good and I wanted at least one but am too tight to pay the asking price.

When I also saw that they could be powered by Lego motors and, therefore, programmed using Scratch, I was even more tempted to buy one.
Decisions, decisions.

Scratch INSET

I'm not an organiser but a doer. However, sometimes, I should be more proactive and I've just surprised myself by putting together an outline for some teacher INSET on Scratch.

Primary schools need to be looking at the introduction of programming for the 2014-15 academic year. Many teachers that I've spoken to are daunted by yet another skill to develop and use to support their pupils. I'd be daunted too.
As I have more time to think about and organise my thoughts than classroom teachers, I've put together a half-day INSET programme which will hopefully give them confidence and a start on addressing these needs. 

Draft poster for Scratch INSET

I hope we'll be able to form a self-help group with regular Scratch-Meets (like the very popular Teach-Meets). I also hope to follow it up with a further half day looking at Scratch and Lego WeDo.

I knew nothing about the Scratch conference in Barcelona in July. The online info makes it look really interesting. One thing I did pick up on, which is very dear to my heart, was the repeated call for resources to use in Scratch programming. Over the years, I've collected a vast bank of audio, images and video to support my work with children. Some organisations have tried to do the same for teachers e.g. National Education Network but wouldn't it be brilliant if there was a one-stop resource shop for the world's schools of copyright free materials to use.