The Holidays are here!

Well, 'YIPPEE day' was written on my calendar a long while ago, and now it has passed! The last few weeks have been a mad round of packing and throwing out - have I kept the right things? Only time will tell.
Although we finished on Friday, I went into school this morning to video the empty classrooms. It is a sad old place and has never looked so scruffy. Graffiti has appeared and all our lovely bright frieze paper has gone. On the other hand, I've visited the new school, and while I'm sure there are many little details which will have to be ironed out, it will be lovely. I will have four walls and a door - a novelty for me! I can have a quiet classroom!
Now I have to go and put away all the stuff I brought home for safe-keeping - where on earth will it all go??

New Skills!

I was at the eTwinning National Conference in Nottingham at the weekend and learned from Sharon how to make vokis. It was great fun and I'm sure I will find a way to use these with my pupils! My project won a prize - so we now have some money to buy some ICT software or hardware! Mypupils were really pleased and we'll have to think carefully about what it will be spent on! Something to complement the Bee Bots we're getting from Tesco perhaps?

voki 2

Get a Voki now!

voki

Get a Voki now!

Visit to Nancy

I was lucky enough to win an eTwinning prize for a project I did with my partner Isabelle from Nancy in the Lorraine area of France. The project was called 'Toy Visit' - Hamish and Boule de Neige swapped places, visiting partner schools.

I set off from Prestwick Airport early on Wednesday morning to fly to Beauvais. From there I took the Navette into Paris and transferred to the Metro to cross the city. I even managed to ask for my ticket in French and was understood - (even with my 1971 O-Level!) I felt I could relax when I was safely on the TGV on my way to Nancy.

Isabelle & I visited two museums on Wednesday afternoon (that's us at the front centre of the picture) and then we went back to her house. On Thursday morning we set off bright and early to school where I met the pupils and staff. I was given gifts for my pupils and myself and lessons began. It was interesting to see how neatly the children wrote in French Script - and in ink! After a two hour lunch break, it was back to work, with some of the children finding symbols representing the partner countries - Scotland, France, Malta, Poland and our new partner, Cyprus. When the children left at 4.30pm, I started to show Isabelle how to use her SMARTBoard, which has been in her school for a little while, but never been used interactively.

By 7.00pm, heads were fuzzy and we went off to meet Anne, who teaches English. We had a lovely meal in a little restaurant before heading home. We spotted some toads on the road so there I was, standing in the middle of a French country road, taking photographs!

More about my experiences in my next post!

Trying to find time!

I'm still working on the MP3 project and amencouraging my Primary 3 class toread expressively. I hope to add their stories to the blog - once I've managed to remember how to do it. That's the trouble really. I learn how to do something and then there aren't enough hours in the day for me to keep everything going, so by the time I come back to it, I can't remember the steps to take! A sign of advancing years! So glad the internet helps me to find out what to do!

Video today!

Another busy day. Today I was trying to get a quiet space to video some children as part of the Associated Schools Group project using the MP3 players - not always easy in an open classroom when there is nearly always something happening in the open area. (Whoever designed open plan schools never had to teach in one!) The children were a bit self-conscious at first, but were able to answer questions - not bad for their first time! Still got a bit to do tomorrow, as a guide to how well children are able to give feed back on someone else's work. They will be filmed again after having done some work on AifL, hopefully improving at the end of the trial time.

Recording our story

Today the pupils in my Primary 3 class used MP3 players to record section of our version of 'The Three Little Pigs'. There were some dramatic voices from the Big Bad Wolf and Little Pigs! Just a few gaps to fill now! The Illustrations were started today too, so hopefully we'll have something to share by the end of the week!