Monthly Archives: May 2013

Handprint Art

Handprint art and craft is very popular. It is easy, it looks great and seems like the teacher is very creative!

Displays in classrooms are great, many people are creating calendars with handprints in different shapes for each month, and a clever blog has come up with an idea for each letter:
http://mommyminutesblog.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/alphabet-handprint-art.html

Other reasons to do the handprint (and sometimes footprint art) are:
*It stimulates the senses.

*It is a tactile experience.

*Kids develop hand-eye coordination and fine motor skills.

*It forms a more intimate bond between the artist and his/her work.

*It allows for therapeutic, artistic self-expression.

*Kids can experiment with colours and textures

*And it allows for spacial awareness.

apple

Teacher Brain

We described a ‘Teacher Brain’ as being able to find mistakes in everyday places and conversations.

A teacher brain also works in thinking about your job when you are ‘off-duty’. Perhaps walking through a shopping centre and seeing some random craft objects in a store and being bombarded with visions of your class’ next art adventure.

Or seeing your own child’s homework sheet and working out how you would do it differently.

We found another blog which describes some more examples of a ‘Teacher Brain’. We were a little excited to see our terminology used elsewhere!

http://jimburke.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/12/the-teacher-brain.html

 

Subitizing

“Subitizing is the ability to ‘see’ numbers at a glance, without one-to-one counting.  Research shows that students who have strong subitizing skills can more easily manipulate and partition numbers, which aids in computation and calculation of numbers.”

From Ruth Rose

Subitizing promotes number sense, and also ties in with the concepts of addition, subtraction, and even place value.

It helps to associate a number with a whole collection, to visualise quantities and the associated number, shows relationships between numbers, allows for visualisation
of subsets of a number and it is the foundation for quick and creative mental mathematics.

Hence, this strange word – ‘subitizing’ is a very beneficial skill to teach your students. There are many subitizing ideas and subitizing activities available on our website!

Number Recognition workbook

Number Recognition workbook