Heidi Hayes Jacobs - Future Schools Now!

Looking for some inspiration and practical ideas for bringing your classroom into the 21st Century? Heidi Hayes Jacobs' TED talk is the kick in the pants you need to get a move on!

YouTube Tuesday: Noni the Pony by Alison Lester

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday!

Today I am sharing a reading of an adorable story by one of my favourite Australian authors (and Australia's first children's laureate), Alison Lester. The story is 'Noni the Pony' and it won the Children's Book Council of Australia award for best picture book in 2011. Read about the book on Alison Lester's website. If you don't love Noni by the end of the story, I'll eat my hat! Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: Mayim Bialik - Blossoming To Science

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday!

Today's video features actor Mayim Bialik, who you might know better by her TV character names of Blossom or Amy from Big Bang Theory. As well as being an actor, Mayim is a scientist (yep, art imitating life in her Big Bang role!) and she is passionate about encouraging girls and women in Science. Show this video to every little girl you know!

YouTube Tuesday: The Dot

It's Tuesday again, and that means it's time for another terrific YouTube video!

This week, I'm sharing a great little animated version of the wonderful picture book The Dot by Peter Reynolds. In this story, a little girl named Vashti is frustrated in art class because she feels she can't draw. Her teacher encourages her to make a mark on the page. Vashti angrily draws a dot, which her teacher makes her sign. And that's where the fun begins! This story will help your students find the courage to have a go. Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: Subtraction Rules!

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday! Be sure to check out the YouTube Tuesday page for lots of great videos!

Today's video is all about learning tricks in Maths to help us solve problems faster. The particular trick being shown in this video is for subtraction, and it is explained very clearly. Your students are sure to find this trick very useful... and maybe you will too!

YouTube Tuesday: Calculating Elapsed Time

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday! Have you checked out the YouTube Tuesday page yet? Lots of great videos to be found there!

Today's video is made by a couple of teachers mucking around, but is one of the best videos I've seen teaching about how to calculate elapsed time! I love how a T-Chart is used to calculate time that has elapsed, and the teachers' crazy antics will keep your kids entertained while they learn. Great work guys!

YouTube Tuesday (Spooky Edition): The Skeleton Dance - Walt Disney (1929)

Yep, it's YouTube Tuesday again! Be sure to check out the linky page for more great videos!

With Halloween coming up this week, I thought I'd issue a spooky edition of YouTube Tuesday! Back in the day when Disney wasn't all princesses and fluff, they put out some wacky cartoons! This one has got to be one of the weirdest - The Skeleton Dance. Made in 1929, it is sure to get you in the mood for a spooky Halloween, in a macabre, black and white kind of way. Great stuff!

YouTube Tuesday: Owls - Beautiful and Deadly

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday! Be sure to check out the YouTube Tuesday page to see all the great videos that have been shared! If you're an education blogger, feel free to link up any time.

I'm a self-confessed owl lover. I first got into owls by reading Kathryn Lasky's Guardians of Ga'Hoole series.

Get book one of the series here.

Since then, I have collected lots of little owl things - books, toys, figurines, puppets - and they are mostly quite cute and idealised. So it is easy for me to sometimes forget that owls are scary birds of prey and that they kill and eat small, furry things for dinner! Today's video serves as a reminder to all us owl-lovers that these birds are both beautiful and deadly. This video would be good to show in a unit on owls or birds of prey, or when looking at animal adaptations to environment.

Warning: this video is not for the squeamish. No gore, but a small, furry thing is caught by this most powerful of hunters.

YouTube Tuesday: Chick Hatching

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday! Be sure to check out the linky page to see all the fabulous videos posted there!

This week's video will be useful to anyone teaching life cycles or birds in the lower grades. It is a great little video of a chick hatching, and it explains what is happening along the way. I hope you find it useful!

YouTube Tuesday: To Be A Drum

Have you checked out the YouTube Tuesday linky page yet? Be sure to pop over and check out some of the great videos that have been posted!

Storyline Online is a great resource for video readings of great texts. Today I am sharing one of my absolute favourites. 'To Be a Drum', read by James Earl Jones, is so very powerful - a little bit 'shivers down the spine' even. I'm sure both you and your students will love it.

Top 5 Pins of the Week: non-fiction notes, place value slider, pyramid dioramas, rekenreks and lapbooks!

Happy Monday! It is back to school for us here in Sydney this week, but we have had an extra day's reprieve with a long weekend public holiday. Time for some inspiration to get us back into the mood for school!

5. Non-Fiction Notes

Get it here!

What better way to start our countdown than with a freebie?! Jessica Heeren has created a fabulously free two-page graphic organiser to help students organise their thoughts while reading non-fiction texts. If you decide to download this fantastic freebie, be sure to leave a rating and a short feedback comment to show Jessica some love! Thanks Jessica!

4. Place Value Slider

See it here!

Suzie over at the 'Suzie's Home Education Ideas' blog has devised a terrific place value manipulative to help students to understand place value. The best part about it is that Suzie has made it available as a free download! Included in the download is everything you see in the picture, as well as a three-digit version. Thanks Suzie!

3. Pyramid Dioramas

See it here!

What is a pyramid diorama? It is an innovative way for students to present information and show their learning. Jimmie Lanley has written all about them here and has included lots of pictures, templates and instructions, as well as a video tutorial to make it super easy for all of us to get in on the action. Thanks Jimmie!

2. DIY Rekenreks

Ever heard of rekenreks? Me neither, until I stumbled across this blog post via Pinterest! Rekenreks are a fantastic tool that can help students to have a greater concept of five and ten. They were originally developed by a Dutch mathematician, and the name loosely translates as 'calculation rack'. Donna Boucher, over at the Math Coach's Corner blog has developed an easy, inexpensive way to make your own rekenrek and has written a step-by-step tutorial on how to make them, using lots of detailed pictures. She has also kindly provided a link to a comprehensive free booklet on using rekenreks in the classroom. I'm super-keen to try rekenreks out in the classroom now and am so pleased to have another tool in the tool kit for Maths. Thanks Donna!

1. How to Make a Lapbook

Maybe you're already familiar with lapbooks, but I'd never even heard of them until a few weeks ago! If, like me, you're a newbie to lapbooks, this great little video will both introduce them and show you how to make them. Lapbooks are a great way to organise information and would be a fantastic study-helper for students. What a terrific idea! 

Be sure to check out the Little Green Pinterest page for more inspiring ideas!

For those heading back to school this week after holidays, all the best for the new term! For everyone else, keep on keeping on! 

YouTube Tuesday: String Figures

Welcome to another YouTube Tuesday!

A few weeks ago, I visited the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney to attend an educator exclusive. It was a great night, and one of their current exhibitions, String Theory, was absolutely fantastic. If you are in Sydney and looking for an excursion to take your kids on, I highly recommend it! During the final part of the evening, we got to have a go at making some art using string ourselves - super fun!

One collection of artworks in the exhibition were prints using string. Remember making cat whiskers, the Eiffel Tower and a teacup with string? Well, it was like that, only more complex. The video I am sharing with you today shows some of the artists making these complex string designs. It is seriously mesmerising! In the classroom, you could have your students make more simple shapes using string and use these shapes to make prints. Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: Scientific Variables

Hello, and welcome to another YouTube Tuesday!

This week I have an awesome little video for you on scientific variables. In my opinion, this video explains the idea of variables so well, that we (the teachers) don't need to! It would be a great video to use in a flipped classroom lesson (i.e. get the students to watch it at home the night before your lesson) so that you can spend more time in class completing your scientific investigation. Watch out for the holiday montage in the middle - love it!

YouTube Tuesday: Situational Irony: the opposite of what you think

Have you checked out the YouTube Tuesday link-up yet?

There are already some great videos there, and there are sure to be more to come! So, on to my video for the week!

Alanis Morrisette, I'm very sorry to inform you that your definition of the word 'ironic' is all wrong! Boy that song used to irk me, not because of the music, but because nearly everything she mentions is not actually ironic at all! Well, it might be too late for Alanis, but at least our students can discover the true meaning of irony by watching this great little video. Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: Sons of Poetry

I'm hosting my first linky party all about YouTube videos for the classroom! If you're a blogger and you'd like to join in the fun, click here or on the image below to go to the YouTube Tuesday Linky page. All the instructions are there, as well as the button to download and add to your own YouTube Tuesday blog post.

Thanks to Grepic for the great background and My Cute Graphics for the popcorn-loving movie-goer graphic!

Now, onto the good stuff - the video!

Sesame Street can be a bit hit and miss for me, but gosh they do a good parody! I'm sharing with you a recently-discovered gem - Sons of Poetry. Trust me, you'll love it! Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: Harry the Dirty Dog

Who doesn't love Betty White? She is an American national treasure! And the book 'Harry the Dirty Dog' is a classic picture book that has been loved by so many kids for so many years. So, Betty White + Harry the Dirty Dog = awesome! Your kids will love hearing Betty read this great book and the animations will keep them enthralled. Well done Storyline Online!

YouTube Tuesday: On the Ning Nang Nong

A bit of nostalgia here at Little Green HQ today - a video clip from my childhood. For those who did not grow up in Australia in the 1980s, Playschool was your go-to kids TV show for great songs and awesome craft ideas. My favourite presenters were Noni Hazelhurst and John Hamblin, who we called 'Funny John' to distinguish him from the other John, who was not as funny. You'll see John later on in the clip - he's the silver-haired gentleman with the triangle. Good stuff!

The songs on Playschool were often accompanied by cute little video clips using animation or claymation. This particular clip is one of the best songs I remember from the show, in my humble opinion! It is On the Ning Nang Nong, the Spike Milligan poem, put to music. Back in the day before manufactured kid-pop, this was how we got down and boogied. Ah, the good ol' days!

Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: Hansel and Gretel

Fairy Tales, as we know, are great for kids of all ages. The trouble is, however, that many videos and texts are aimed at younger children, so our older students often miss out. Never fear! This version of Hansel and Gretel will work well for your older students as well as younger students. It contains cute stop-motion animation and jokes in the narration that will be appreciated by students in older grades. This video could even be used as a lead-in for a stop-motion animation project for your students. Enjoy!

YouTube Tuesday: The Fibonacci Sequence

This is a video for all you high school Mathematics teachers, but it is also for anyone who likes to appreciate the intricacies of the natural world. The video explores through animation (no words, just visuals) some of the places that the Fibonacci Sequence appears in nature. Amazing stuff!

YouTube Tuesday: Outdoors with Jason Mraz

I'm a Jason Mraz fan - I'll admit it. So when I heard he had reworked his song, 'I'm Yours' for Sesame Street, I knew I needed to see that video! I was not disappointed! The song encourages kids to go outdoors to play, and is really catchy, so it is sure to be a winner with kids, parents and teachers.

Happy Tuesday! Enjoy the sunshine, wherever it may be found!