MrGray.id.au » Stages of Learning

Clean-Up time with the Clean-Up Robot

Mr Gray — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 12:14:09 +0000

HarryKindergarten does great videos for the Kindergarten classroom. This one might help you to get your Kindergarten classroom cleaned at the end of the school day.

Happy Limerick Day

Mr Gray — Tue, 12 May 2009 12:09:54 +0000

Today is Limerick Day. It celebrates the birthday of Edward Lear (1812 – 1888). Lear made limericks popular in his 1846 publication “A Book of Nonsense”

What is a limerick?

A limerick is a five-line poem written with one couplet and one triplet.

A couplet is a two-line rhymed poem and a triplet is a three-line.

What are the typical characteristics of Limericks?

Limericks are a funny and nonsense poem.
They have five lines.
They have a rhyme scheme of A, A, B, B, A (lines 1, 2 and 5 rhyme; lines 3 and 4 rhyme).
The syllabification is 8, 8, 5, 5, 8.

Did you know? Limerick is also a large city in Ireland.

What a limerick is in a crunch
Is a bit like a loony’s light lunch
Though it briefly delights
It’s just four nutty bites
Swallowed down with a ludicrous punch

By Graham Lester

What’s another word for Synonym?

Mr Gray — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 13:40:29 +0000

Can you think of one?? I haven’t been able to. Even a search at Synonym.com brought back the result:

Sorry, I could not find synonyms for ‘synonym’

I found some websites that deal with Synonyms though:

I did also find the humourous t-shirts too, if you’re that way inclined. They’re available over at Zazzle.com

Weather Chart Icons

Mr Gray — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 12:23:37 +0000

I came across these Free Weather Icons the other day – could be good for use on a weather chart, or maybe even an IWB version?? I might even try to come up with something like that a little later on. Let me know if you’ve seen a good IWB chart for recording daily weather…maybe we could incorporate these icons into it?? Thanks again to the Web Design Guru for these free icons.

I also found these icons over at Serradinho.com.

Student Goals

Mr Gray — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 13:06:40 +0000

Mrs McNamara has come up with a good idea. She has used student photos to illustrate students’ goals for the rest of the year. These have been presented in the “motivational poster” style though, using FD’s Flickr Toys. One of the toys is a motivational poster creator – simply upload the photo, type in a few bits of text and it’s ready to download.

Mrs McNamara has published it on SlideShare – You can view it here or download from here.

This tool could also be used to illustrate classroom rules, for example.

I’ve contemplated using the Magazine Cover Creator as a simple but unique idea for a stall at a fete.

Any other ideas???? Leave them in the comments below…..

Division Problems

Mr Gray — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 10:55:27 +0000

Have been doing some marking lately, and this student’s answer on their Year 4 Maths Assessment made me chuckle:

Graduation Songs

Mr Gray — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 10:02:35 +0000

It’s getting to that time of the year when a lot of schools are trying to find a suitable graduation song to play or for the kids to sing. Here are some that have been suggested on a listserve I belong to:

Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), by Greenday
Light Surrounding Me, by Evermore
We Are Family, by ??
Opportunity, by Pete Murray
Lean on Me, by ??
We’re all in this together, from High School Musical
Graduation Song, by Vitamin C
Morning has Broken, by Cat Stephens
Rise Up, by ??
You Raise Me Up, by Westlife
Shine, by Shannon Noll
Waiting on the world to change, by John Mayer
Together we are one, by Delta Goodrem
I’m on my way, by The Proclaimers
Don’t Worry, Be Happy. by Bobby McFerrin
We All Stand Together, by Paul McCartney and the Frog Chorus
Hero, by Mariah Carey
Shine, by ??
We Are The Champions, by Queen

If you know who the performers are for any of these songs, please let me know so I can fill in the blanks.

SMART World Teachers’ Day Video Contest 2007

Mr Gray — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 03:12:09 +0000

The winners of Smarttech’s World Teachers’ Day Video Contest for 2007 have been announced – with the global winner being Miss Lisa McCallum, a Kindergarten teacher at St. Therese Primary School in Sydney, Australia. View their winning video now by clicking the picture below.

Learn to Juggle

Mr Gray — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 12:15:53 +0000

Circus Arts has been a fairly major initiative within the Western NSW Region of the NSW DET, originally starting out at Dubbo West Public School as early as 1991. Since then it has grown with many other schools becoming involved. I just came across this video demonstrating how to juggle, over at Sclipo.com. Further information can also be found at JugglingIsASnap.org.

Ian’s Shoelace Site

Mr Gray — Sat, 25 Aug 2007 06:23:17 +0000

I can’t remember how I came across this site, but I’ve had it stored on my computer for a while now. It is Ian’s Shoelace Site, which has a huge list of different ways to lace your shoes, heaps of different knots to use as well as heaps of other hints and tips. Pretty Amazing and worth a visit.