Several classes are researching the 50 years of decimal currency in Australia. Here are some useful Youtube clips.
Dollar Bill and Australians keep the wheels of industry turning
Decimal currency, 14 February 1966 – Television advertisements
New decimal coin designs
50 years of decimal currency – Studio 10 segment
Decimal currency – Behind the News
Royal Australian Mint Tour – Behind the News
More information is available HERE, the website of the Royal Australian Mint.
Stage 3 students have been learning about democracy in HSIE. Now we move on to the Australian arena. A rather irreverent look at the history of Australia, by Daven Bettridge, this animated video clip demonstrates several elements of persuasive texts.
A brief history of Australia
We then investigated the Youtube search engine and found that by adding the descriptor “Parkes” (as in Sir Henry Parkes, Father of Federation), with “Australia” and “Federation”, we could bring up a useful selection of short student assignments from other schools, and promotional clips aimed at tourists. We discussed potential problems and strategies for using such information, and ways to enhance our own learning. Two of the most useful clips, for an introduction to Federation in Australia, were:
The Federation Show with Henry Parkes and Smiley Smiles
Grave of Sir Henry Parkes, Faulconbridge, NSW
Stage 1 and Early Stage 1 students are learning about Aboriginal Dreaming stories.
How the birds got their colours by Pamela Lofts and Mary Albert
A student, from somewhere in the world, adapted this story as an animation, setting it in the Philippines:
How birds got their color by Naufal Shukri
How smart are crows?
Crow intelligence – multi-step tool action test
Joe the talking crow
Smart crow uses cars to crack nuts in Akita, Japan, near Senshu Park
Last time we visited this part of the cycle, students enjoyed this Youtube clip.
Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 are studying fables this term. We found this great short video, with accompanying song, on Youtube:
Song: “A Man, a Boy and a Donkey” – Children’s Music Video
And here’s an award-winning music video version, by Derek Sonic Thunders, of Craig Smith’s “Wonky donkey” picture book and song:
Wonkey donkey song unofficial music video
Last term’s Stage 1 book rappers are doing an extension activity with me during our Literacy time: investigating claymation (stop motion) video presentations using a kit from the local post office, “Make your own haunted house movie” by Nancy Hall (Hinkler Books, 2010). We have already storyboarded our Halloween story, but have now checked out a few claymation fable videos on Youtube:
The story of the boy who cried wolf – claymation
Bugs and books 2008
Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 students are studying the season of spring – and life cycles. These Youtube video clips (below) will help with the trickier concepts (frog attributes, such as their sticky tongue, etc) not conveyed visually in the big book, “Tadpole diary” by David Drew.
Time-lapse: frog spawn
Tadpoles eating bread
Frog fail! (Dragonfly escapes frog attack)
And, for a bit of fun:
Super Fly carries frog (haha)
We are moving onto Fables this term, and the first fable ties in quite nicely with the work on frogs in Life Cycles:
The frog and the ox
La grenouille et le boeuf – The frog and the ox
The frog and the ox fable
The Stage 3 students – four boys – in our school’s hearing unit made this short animation with me today:
We used Xtra Normal with very minimal knowledge of online animation programs, and created the above clip in about thirty minutes. The ability to edit and re-edit over and over, and so quickly, kept the students very engaged. Despite their hearing losses, which required them to split their attention between the IWB and the teacher’s aide signing them the dialogue, the boys were getting such a lot out of this program. We were going to do some interactive Antarctica activities this afternoon, but the lesson took a dramatic tangent into the lesser-known world of Web 2.0.
A few words of caution: I think it is best used with the teacher registering and small groups of students collaborating with it, under careful teacher supervision. That way all the productions are stored together, under the teacher’s log-in name. I did notice that some of the “demo” animation samples on the site are very inappropriate for use with students. For example, the Tiger Woods parody!
Wow! I literally spent only about 20 minutes on the above animation, using a free site called Xtra Normal.
Just imagining the possibilities!