Michael's Starters and Plenaries Pack

Dear Colleagues,
I have raked out a starters, middles and plenaries pack to share on the blog. It has the names and descriptions/instructions of each activity and will be very useful for all teachers I hope.It has been very useful for me.

Thanks

Michael. (MFL)

Starters, Middles, Plenaries Activity Pack

Death by POWERPOINT - Some useful tips to improve your presentations!

Inspired by Presentation Zen, this presentation is a great reminder not to bore students or ourselves to death with POWERPOINT. I think most teachers are guilty of creating dull presentations, but the truth is that the problem goes beyond education. I think there are more bad ones out there in the world than good.

If teachers are guilty of producing bad presentations, then students can be even worse, creating slides with waaaay too much text which they then proceed to read from the screen. They can be forgiven for this, because they rarely see any good examples. If you follow the advice in the presentation, you will impress your audiences much more – though you will have to know/rehearse what you’re going to say, because reading it from the screen is not an option. I hope you find it useful!

Better Slides

View more presentations from The Cottesloe School.

'THUNKS' to get you and the students thinking

I had the pleasure of attending a CPD course today at the Campaign for Learning headquarters with reknown ex-head, SIP and innovative Learning to Learn leader Jackie Beere OBE. During her presentation she spoke about THUNKS. I hadn't heard of them before, so did some research when I got home and found some to share with you. Some teachers describe them as 'Thought hand-grenades'. I like this idea of an explosion of thought - surely that's what learning is all about.

"Thunks are drawn from Independent Thinking’s work in Philosophy for Children and have been used with thousands of young people to get them thinking deeply and critically. Questions where there are no rights or wrongs are hugely liberating for young people and generate levels of thinking that you often don’t achieve with traditional ’guess what’s in the teacher’s head’ type question and answering where there are right or wrong answers." Learning Bug

Here's a few to get you started and some links to THUNK sites. These are super for starter activities; tutor time and the students could even make their own THUNKS. Please share any with colleagues here. Your conmtributions are always valued and appreciated.


Is black a colour?



Can you touch the wind?


If I swapped brains with you would you still be you and me still me?


Is a millionaire who is marooned on a desert island still a millionaire?


Is plastic (which comes from oil, which comes from trees) man-made or natural?

Some more Thunks:
http://www.independentthinking.co.uk/Cool+Stuff/Thunks/default.aspx

A Super offering foir ALL Teachers froim Mike in MFL

I have attached a list of links to good interactive or resource making websites. The first of these ( blockbuster quiz) is for plenaries and is particularly impressive. There are countless ready made quizzes in all subjects but the site also enables you to make your own very quickly. There are also some other brilliant sites here for people to play around with - 'Topmarks' is again another excellent one for all subjects.There is a splendid one for History teachers, although they may already know about it. You may already know about a lot of them but then again, maybe not. I hope they are useful.

Mike Davies
1. http://www.teachers-direct.co.uk/resources/quiz-busters/
2. http://www.feebleminds-gifs.com/graphics-sitemap.html
3. http://www.topmarks.co.uk/
4. http://www.blogger.com/goog_1264278729146
5.http://puzzles.about.com/od/beginnersxwords/Easy_Crossword_Puzzles_Crossword_Puzzles_for_Beginners.htm
6. http://www.tes.co.uk/resources/Home.aspx
7. http://www.ngfl-cymru.org.uk/vtc-home.htm
8. http://www.tes.co.uk/Resources/Resource.aspx?page=Resource&resourceId=357

Great Starters and Plenaries site

Dear all,

To keep the spirit of Starters and Plenaries alive - I've found a fantastic website with powerpoints/word documents using a variety of techniques. It's Geography related but am sure you can adapt them!
Hope this helps!

http://www.radicalgeography.co.uk/Startersandplenaries.html

Regards,
Joe Morrin (Geography)

Brilliant Starter Activity Ideas

A brilliant starter activity which could be adapted for different abilities and subjects.
Worksheet - The student has a copy of this in front of them to help them work out where the treasure is. I suggest that you laminate them if you want to use them often!

PowerPoint - This needs to be shown to the students as it contains the rhythmic codes for the teacher to play. I would suggest using this as a starter activity when teaching notation and note values.

http://exchsvr/exchange/mooren/Inbox/Post-it:%20Brilliant%20starter%20activity%20enhancing%20creativity.EML/_Animal_Treasure_Hunt[1].ppt/C58EA28C-18C0-4a97-9AF2-036E93DDAFB3/_Animal_Treasure_Hunt[1].ppt?attach=1#256,1,Animal

Treasure Hunt
The game can be adapted to include more complex rhythms or notes on the stave. Rewards (in line with the schools merit system) could be used when the student works out the correct square that you stop the rhythms on. I have chosen to use the pictures of animals on the treasure board (as it is sooo easy to make the students think that they are not completing music work!)

http://exchsvr/exchange/mooren/Inbox/Post-it:%20Brilliant%20starter%20activity%20enhancing%20creativity.EML/_animal_treasure_hunt.doc/C58EA28C-18C0-4a97-9AF2-036E93DDAFB3/_animal_treasure_hunt.doc?attach=1

Jimison (MFL)

Great literacy Starter Activity

I have found this to be a good starter activity in Art and it can work in all subjects. It gets students using literacy in other subjects, plus can be a fun competition!!

Sarah Stirling
NQT Arts Faculty

Linking Literacy Monet

Some more 'Starter' goodies

Teacher Guides - Starters Guide

Excellent online Learning and Teaching tools that are GREAT FUN!

I have been searching out some brilliant online education gadgets/tools for you to use in the classroom, and for those of you who are active bloggers, these can be embedded in your departmental sites. 

Flipcards

This is a great 'starter' or 'plenary' for any year group and a super way to test learning, knowledge and to revise topics or vocabulary. Create your own flipcards and even get the students to create them and test each other!

Click here to start: 

http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/got-to-have-gadgets/7df03af6e2dad52d30e5be6ed40e4c57

Wordles

Have fun with language and create subject Wordles - beautiful word clouds. This is a great revision aid or a way of consolidating learning on a topic, theme. Great fun!

Click here to play:

http://www.wordle.net/

Glogster

This is an amazing tool to create totally interactive posters using sound, video, imagery, text, graphics and data. Students love making glogs and they are a brilliant way of bringing topics to life! Students can use original photos and videos, or existing images and film clips. This dynamic and creative tool can animate your curriculum and really engage students with subjects. What's more - it's FREE! 

Get started here:

http://www.glogster.com/

If you find any great online tools that you would like to share with staff, please leave a link in comments or e-mail me with the link for me to embed here: mooren@welling.bexley.sch.uk