morag.macdonald

Been very busy with dress rehearsals, choir practice, Christmas parties and the usual fayre in primary schools at this time of year. I have also occasionally taken a class to the computer suite for a spot of Christmas web surfing…….. or not!!

It appears that one excellent site www.northpole.com, triggers our firewall into action….but not always and not on every machine. Today even Northumberland’s ngfl Christmas area fell foul of the system that keeps our cherubs safe. I now must phone up to discover why a disco dancing Santa and some festive games of pelmanism cause such a stooshie. I reckon the word ‘game’ is the culprit. The difficult thing to understand is that the first time I logged onto the northpole website I had no problem and used it successfully on every machine with a class!

A link within the Kent ngfl Christmas area takes you to www.citycreator.com which has proved extremely popular with the children. Whilst looking at it at home my 19 year old son asked me why I was always looking at ‘weird stuff’ on the internet. He then hijacked the laptop and created his own city for a good half an hour. Worth a wee look. You can send it as an e card and one of them is snocity. Very festive.

Today I used the Activote pods with the Primary 2 class for the first time. I used another, simpler Christmas quiz which has a choice of 3 answers…..a…b….or c. The children soon got the hang of it and cheered when they saw the results. Everyone knew that an angel told the shepherds about the birth of baby Jesus, correct answer ‘ b’. One child had voted d…….what a good way to sort out your letters, they didn’t make that mistake again!

Best laugh was the question about mistletoe……..What do people do under it?

a Sing a carol

b Say a prayer

c Kiss

All 22 children voted either a or b and were horrified at the thought of kissing under it!

Biggest surprise was how long they sustained their concentration. I had thought to wrap it up but the children wanted to continue and voted for another 15 minutes until playtime.

Got a phonecall from Promethean to ask how I was getting on with the Activote pods that I won. I had to confess that I had not used them yet as I was making use of the set on loan from the authority. I then thought it would be a good idea to try them out, just in case they were not working.

So this afternoon with Primary 5 we registered the pods and got going with a Christmas Quiz, downloaded from the Promethean Planet website. There are  an increasing number of Activote flipcharts in the resource area, including one that I made up on money for P2.  Many of the flipcharts have been good, but you really need to try them out for yourself to see if they fit the bill. Occassionally there are errors in the chart, but as they have all been submitted by busy teachers, no wonder.

I spent time on Friday in the other P5 class showing their teacher how the Activote pods work. She is using a PC with her board so the interface was a bit different but she is very keen to get going with the voting system now she has seen it in action. I shall entrust the pods to her in the meantime so that she can get used to using them.

Went online with P3 this morning to look at www.northpole.com , an interactive seasonal website. Much fun to be had.

Had a lot of fun with the Primary 1’s this morning as they explored the shape materials. We discussed the names of the shapes and one wee boy suggested that the quarter circle should be called a curved triangle…brill. The children didn’t know what a hexagon was and a suggested name was a cornered circle! What fabulous ideas and I think I prefer their suggestions.

I found a set of shape stampers and an ink pad, which proved incredibly popular, as were the Clever Sticks. The children also had the option of using the shapes area of the ActivPrimary software but are disappointed that the PC version doesn’t have the ‘hoover”, to sook away their mistakes. I have managed to get the Smart board in the P1  classroom working at last so they have been trying it out with their class teacher ( woohoo).

I think the name will stick as we embark upon our new jobs as Peripatetic Early Level Teachers! Having spent the last 2 days at Inveraray training for my new job , there is so much to digest and read.

I have been without internet access during this time so have been surfing to my heart’s content since I got home. Pickford’s managed to unload my car of its contents and I certainly won’t need any novels for Christmas this year!

Despite at times feeling a bit overwhelmed, mixed with fear and flashes of “help ma boab” it promises to be a very interesting and exciting time ahead.

I will enjoy being immersed in Early Years and have just been looking again at TTS whose stand I visited at the Scottish Learning Festival. They had a super product which looked like a wee dry wipe board but you can record 6 or 10 seconds of speech.

I checked it out again and they now produce a 24 page talking photo album. This looks to have brilliant potential for PLP’s , talking story books made by the children and changeable displays to cover so many curricular aspects. Children can also revisit and develop their ideas by simply re-recording. They also produce a 1 to 24 button strip, a bit like a big ruler which can be displayed beside children’s work. The work can be named and numbered enabling children or parents to hear what their child has to say about a piece of work, model or drawing they have completed.

I know how much the older children love the record facility in Kidspiration so this would be a gem of a resource to have in Early Years.

Back to school tomorrow and will be working for most of the morning with Primary 1 who are a lovely bunch. We are going to explore 2D shapes and will use the ActivPrimary software as well as some super foam shapes I found in the resource room. I shall get the children to photograph their shape models and print them out to display.

Now if I had a talking photo album…………..