New PhotoPeach celebrations

Here is a new PhotoPeach digital slideshow which archives some of the photos and craftwork of this year’s K-2 Chinese New Year celebrations:


Year of the Horse at Penrith PS

The inclement weather on Friday gave Class 1HB an additional lesson in the school library, so we brought out the collection of puppets and brainstormed a new digital story:


A lemur’s tale

Kookaburras!

This week’s Aboriginal Dreaming story for Early Stage 1 and Stage 1 is “The kookaburra who stole the moon”.

The picture book I have usually used for this week’s theme, on the three-year literacy cycle, has not shown up since our move to the new library, so I went looking online. As I said three years ago, there are slim pickings on the story itself, although there are many references to travelling theatre shows and audio productions. This Youtube kookaburra laugh is still useful, though:


Kookaburra calls.

Kooka1
Coming soon to a Photo Peach slideshow!

Related Dreaming stories include:

* Laughing jackass and the sun fire at JoyZine

* Goo-Goor-Gaga the kookaburra at Dreamtime Kullilla Art.

Superheroes are champion readers

Announcing another Stage 1 digital story based on the Book Week 2012 slogan. As mentioned a few weeks ago, I’m spending two weeks with each class group (about twelve selected students), identified by each class teacher, for 30 mins per day. In this particular example, the teacher wanted every student in her class to have the experience, so Year 1 students of a composite class started a story (theme, character building, some photos) and the Year 2 students finished it (more photos, sequencing, caption writing, editing, etc).

Here is their effort, “Superheroes are champion readers“, hot off the virtual press:
photopeach.com/album/78xb36


Superheroes are champion readers!

Remember that Photo Peach requires the latest version of Flash to view the digital story.
ABOUT PHOTO PEACH:
Please remember that Photo Peach is blocked for student use by the NSW DEC’s web filters. For good reason. It has some very unsavoury stuff on it. Similar to Youtube, no one rates the material. Search “What’s popular” or “What’s new” on the site and you’ll find lots of other… inappropriate stuff. Just like Youtube and other Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis and blogs.

Every time I’ve used the Photo Peach site, it’s under MY username and (secret) password. We work on brainstorming and storyboarding offline, then upload photos or graphics under my direct supervision, edit in small groups, and view our finished products the same way. My username and password, and no one else can change it. No open browsing. Unless you close off open comments, these, too, have to be previewed before each use with students if you notice a new comment has been added.

I’ve written several articles about strategies for use. Click HERE to download a PDF from Scan teacher librarians’ journal (NSW DEC).

or our Guided Inquiry site, featuring lots of Stage 3 persuasive slideshows

or other articles ‘iInquire… iLearn… iCreate… iShare: Stage 1 students create digital stories’ in Scan 30(2) May 2011, pp 4-5.

or a similar idea using PowerPoint instead: ‘Have blog, will storyboard!’ in info@aslansw Issue #2, May 2010, pp 5-8.

Recent NSW DEC book raps have excellent online instructions for using Web 2.0 tools with students. Scroll down on the PDF linked HERE.

On the “Guided Inquiry” site, I have the following warning:
“Teachers and parents: By the way, just a few points to consider with Photo Peach: Use it as judiciously as you would a series of Youtube clips. Don’t permit students to do open browsing; Photo Peach is a Web 2.0 facility that is open to anyone, and the slideshows are ‘unrated’. Also, if you notice that new comments have been added to a slideshow you’ve made, please preview the slideshow again before using it with students so you can monitor (and moderate/remove) unwanted comments. (Or close off comments altogether.) Consider a subscription to Photo Peach, which enables you to add your own or Creative Commons music, a wider range of transitions, and the capacity to download slideshows to your hard drive, web space or a CD.”

While there is some inconvenience with using Photo Peach, it’s still an amazing resource and the benefits outweigh the problems. Small group work enhances opportunities for talking & listening, negotiating and other skills.

Celebrating National Simultaneous Storytime

NSS Lion, Zebra, Moose and Bear

Today, our whole school participated in the annual ALIA National Simultaneous Storytime with a reading of Nick Bland’s “The very cranky bear”.

NSS Sheep and Bear

The hearing support unit used a Youtube presentation in Auslan. It was so well done that, after I’d read the book to the Stage 1 group who’d used the school library as their venue today, we decided to play the Auslan performance as well.

NSS National Simultaneous Storytime 2012

NSS IWB presentation

NSS Auslan presentation

National Simultaneous Storytime
is an eagerly-anticipated annual event!

NSS Ian and puppets

Eeeek! More puppets – enough, enough?

Chick & Duckling puppets
The chick puppet (above left) was probably originally a duckling, too, but when I found a different duckling (right) a few months later, I sewed the beak of the first one into a point.

Zoo puppets
An assortment of puppets from Taronga Park Zoo’s souvenir shop.

Coat of Arms puppets
Emu and kangaroo puppets: Australia’s coat of arms!

Students at school helped to display the (now-huge) puppet collection!

Puppets group

Puppets group 2

Now we just need to complete that puppet theatre.

What’s cookin’?

What's cooking?

Any idea what’s bubbling away on my cooktop? I’m dyeing two customised puppets!

Giraffe/dog composite & spare tiger puppets
And this becomes…

Bat & Panther
… this!

Yes, they are a pair of customized puppets, now dried in the washing machine spin-drier. The completed bat has wings cut from brown felt and the new eyes are flat beads in a pink plastic, Supaglued over the original black giraffe eyes. 50 cents for a packet containing lots (of future replacement eyes?) I love bargain shops!

The panther’s eyes are some teardrop-shaped yellow plastic “jewels”, originally bought for a different project. The only reason for turning a tiger into a panther was to give the bat a dunking buddy, and use up the leftover dye.

Cat & Frog
These two new additions (above) look rather sedate after the cooking pot episode!

More puppets! It’s an obsession!

Puppets 1

Bargain basement animal puppets at $3 each from The Reject Shop, Penrith Plaza. Not sure why the Dalmatian has a yellow nose. I originally rejected these four puppets as my least favourites, but at just $3 each they made a hard bargain to pass up.

Puppets 2

More cute animal puppets, this time from the online Sunshine Markets, Queensland. The parcel arrived today! These were an irresistible Internet find: crocodile, leopard and (what the online catalogue called) “the Big Good Wolf”. Really? With those eyes?

The giraffe neck project

New puppets

It’s an obsession! Despite resisting the urge to keep buying new puppets for the library. I found myself in need of a sheep puppet for next term at school, and yesterday I went back to find their last one. The bargain shop also had giraffes. The galah (it squawks!) and spotted quoll puppets were more expensive, from the local ABC Shop.

Giraffe project

The bargain shop had two no-necked giraffes left, so I have just combined two into one, to give my giraffe an appropriately long neck. A bargain-priced wooden paper-towel holder was disassembled and the stick glued inside the giraffe’s head. The original body “glove” was glued and wrapped around the wooden stick, then the beheaded body was sewn to the base of the resulting long neck.

Puppets 3

(Above left) Customised puppet-to-be: I hope to create a bat puppet from the spare giraffe’s head on a $3 spotty Dalmation dog puppet’s body. Yet to be dyed brown or grey. I’ll need some felt for the wings, and some sharp white teeth.
(Above right) Another dog puppet from the $6 range.