Catchup

A rough draft of the Black order set

Teaching myself Tinkercad so as to be of use as a teacher of it for my students, who will be learning the program so that the 3D printer can be put to work. It is a basic and quite powerful modelling program. The controls are a little bit idiosyncratic and it has a tendency to dump the user back the main menu when doing hard operations, though it has so far not lost progress doing so. My first self set challenge is an Order vs Chaos chess set.

I splashed out and bought a couple of rolls of printing filament from these guys mid week so that I can get some personal printing done at work guilt free.

On Saturday N and I made the Dubbo run leaving the children with grandparents. A shockingly expensive shopping and very long drive later we made it home safe and have cupboards chock full with food and a shed full of timber and paints for projects.

I’ve been commissioned to build a set of portrait photography boxes and among the supplies purchased were two sheets of 12mm ply cut down to fit in the car. This project provided me with the first opportunity to put my mitre saw to use and my what a pleasure that machine is. All pieces are cut and ready for building and I even ripped down some off cuts to make parts for a nesting box. Assembly to happen later in the week.

Tuesdays are staff and year level meetings each week, meaning that I am usually not home until near six. I have found out that there is a Judo class on from Seven in the school hall on Tuesday evenings. I would like to attend but the mental hurdle of returning to work is a big obstacle. Wish me luck.

 

A few links to share from the last few days:

A beautiful representation of the causes of Global Warming.

Finalists of the Smithsonian Photo Competition

Do Want: Colour 3D Printed scale models of astronomical bodies.

I periodically return to the works of Simon Stålenhag (Sale site) Disturbing, fantastical and somehow totally believable they conjure a deeply uncomfortable alternative world. Someday I’ll commit and buy a print. I just haven’t settled on which yet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dr. Seuss’s Birthday

Not pictured, the white cotton gloves I was given at work to complete the look.

It was a hot day for it but there were some truly splendid costumes from the students for Theodor Seuss Geisel’s (Dr.Seuss’s) 113th birthday. In my class I had a couple of Green Eggs and Ham, 5 Things (3 ones, 1 two and a three), a One fish, and a Blue fish (Two fish and Red fish were in other classes), A fox in socks and a couple of cats in hats, including yours truly.

 

Other than the costumes and a special canteen lunch it was a pretty ordinary school day, but outlandish outfits certainly add colour and humour to even ordinary procedures.

 

Now to settle on what to dress up as for Simultaneous Story Time in May.

Dress Ups

I discovered to my horror that my school doesn’t do book week. Then to my immediate relief the librarian told me that we do four book fairs a year and a dress up day for the simultaneous story time event in May.

To add further excitement this year another bookish celebration has been added to the calendar. It is the birthday of a certain well loved American cartoonist and storyteller tomorrow.

In consequence this evening I have been fighting with the sewing machine again to produce an altogether different kind of costume. Build complete, full dress run is tomorrow.

Snakes & Adders

Armour build video part 4.

Editing part 5 at the moment and stewing on alterations to the weekly maths program as I work.

 

Of course I found my macro lens just days after purchasing a replacement, but I was glad of it today. My principal caught two baby browns on school property this morning. I took the opportunity to get some closeups of the deadly little buggers.


 

 

Painting, Shoveling Gravel and Realestate Shopping

Painted all of the remaining costume elements by hand today. I tiny bit of dry brushing and they are ready for clear coating and a build complete announcement. For now I need to get editing because filming was interrupted by filling up my 64g camera memory card today and there is no way I have room to store it all for long.

Sir Vader’s ruby meteorite Damascus steel short sword below:

I also did a fair chunk of manual labour helping move one of the principals aquaponics systems into the outer wet room attached to my classroom. He had a gravel bed system in use which needed mucked out. In the classroom we will be trying a suspended foam system. I am now expecting a whole lot of jokes about Mr.Langs ‘Hydge setup’.

In another exciting turn of events today we looked at properties around town suitable for N to use as a photography studio. Now that both boys are in care or at preschool at least two days a week she is feeling ready and keen to begin working. There are a couple of promising properties the best of which is only $100 a week.

 

Maths Planning

For reasons unclear theses images simply would not attach to yesterdays post. All made using the machine learning AI painter Dreamscope.

A real flayed man leaping from Bodyworlds using the Greek Urn filter.

A real skeleton from Bodyworlds using the Picasso filter

Old and new cylons eye to eye using the Van Gogh filter

As I said yesterday I don’t feel that it has yet produced a truly extraordinary work for me like some I have seen. But it is entertaining and pretty incredible.

N didn’t make the Dubbo run today but likely will tomorrow. Instead we took a swim, sheet mulched cat heads int he garden and played games, real imaginary and computer and whiled the day away.

This evening I’ve made more planning progress on my maths programs in which I have two separate groups and topics to cater to. I take the top maths rotation which is mostly my class sans the year fours and a few more from the other 5/6’s. With that group for three to four hours a week we forge ahead in the number strand using the NSW year 6 and 7 syllabus as a guide, but with a whole lot more physical and creative based learning activities as well as some solid traditional bookwork and problem solving practise. For forty minutes each day I also take maths for my whole class and it is during this time I am expected to cover all the other strands of maths; Chance, Data & Statistics, Geometry and Measurement.

This is not enough time and so of course I am doing my best to cross pollinate ideas and build actually useful skills. For instance as a significant portion of all our classes were away for an inter-school swimming carnival during my last lesson. I taught circles to the upper rotation. It being very apparent that most had never used a compass before and even those who had, were never given explicit instruction into how to not mess it up every time. We will be building on that session in the week ahead when we will create pie charts to illustrate the common fractions using compasses and protractors. All this in the hope that by the time we get to angles a few weeks down the line we can move beyond classifying angles and into the elements in short order.

Planning ongoing.

 

 

Planning ongoing and N is planning ongoing on a Dubbo run independantly tomorrow.

I’ve finally got a more cohesive plan of what and how I will teach English to my mixed grade classroom. I went into this term with less planning than I have ever started a year before. Mostly as a function of a lack of handover from the previous year’s staff member but coupled with a change of system and a whole host of familiar things relabeled with new acronyms.  Anyway We are going to do narratives, persuasive texts in two forms and letter writing as our overarching English and reading themes.

With this in mind, I spent the morning giggling and crying my way through famous letters from history some familiar, most not, searching for excellent examples to use in reading and writing. My intent is for the class to compose real letters to their grandparents/elders and actually post them (republished post marking). I settled on a few examples, most notably the best cover letter ever and one of the great mic drops of history. but Ill need more than one a week through the term so the hunt continues. For narratives I’ll be using what is available of the Pixar/Khan Academy story writing course, supplemented by reading a class set of YA Fic fantasy novels in class.

I’m struggling to find really impressively good examples of the most hated format in writing, the five paragraph essay. But I’m not giving up yet and we will be making print ads as a second persuasive text type. For ads at least I have a mountain of very good examples.

L and I had a play with Dreamscope this morning. It has been a while and it has definitely improved and increased the number of filters since my last try. While impressed by the tech I haven’t yet managed to produce a really strikingly good piece. Inserting images into the post is being problematic this evening.

 

 

Art is a major part of a good maths curriculum.
We began using compasses on Thursday. Beginning Tuesday we will be using them and protractors to produce fraction diagrams and building from here.

 

Long weekend

Here in the western district school not only starts a full week later in term one, we also get a midterm break in week five of each term. That is a full four day weekend in the middle of each term! ostensibly to allow visits to medical professionals and other difficult to access businesses in regional centres. I’m making stuff.

Both boys were booked into and well enough to attend day care today. F and I have cleared up and L never got the bug for a blessing. So today I made some good progress in planning, primarily in writing in which I’ve got content for at least the next eight weeks nailed down.

I’ve also began painting detail on L’s costume and have only just finished the first pass with silver.

Still reaping the benefits of paying for ‘Alien Side Boob’ by Birmingham with genuine lol’s on Fridays, Mondays are generally amusing but not as humorously vitriolic as with today’s which included the lines:

“Like a Brylcreamed Huntsman spider you thought you’d drowned in bug spray suddenly coming at you from a dark corner, the Abdominator dashed out of the shadows ‘to unveil a sweeping conservative manifesto for the next federal election’. Like his last spell as PM it was all but satire-proof by reason of congenital hypercrazia.”

 

Wed 22nd

Making it through the day is an achievement with a sick infant in the house.

Running the help of psuedoephedrine today  as I am fighting the same cold. Very glad to have a long weekend to look forward to.  We have a mid term break, four day weekend in the middle of each term to allow people to make trips to regional centres etc.

Class work is consuming almost all waking creative thought. Today making split booklets for when, if I am unwell and relief is not available my class will be split into other rooms around the school with busy work to occupy them. Also checklists to ensure students make it through all the essential weekly literacy activities during rotations.

N and I have begun tracking our daily shifts in opinion about what to do next year in the form of tally sheets with options and pros and cons on the kitchen cupboards.

 

Infection

One Infant down with the first day care flu of the year.

I blame the lack of UV in the little kid space. Completely anecdotally of course but I swear the colds are less common from the bigger outdoor kids areas. His big brother is now also showing possible early signs of infection.

Dog help us all.

The book tree has sprung some leaves, I’ll share another picture when it is a little more verdant.

L insisted on a costume test after yesterdays undercoating.


Leaving off with the joy of Infinite Immortal Bens

http://infiniteimmortalbens.tumblr.com/post/154150389025