Tag: Literacy

Superhero Ideas That Didn’t Make It Through the Revolving Doors

Curriculum, Literacy, SuperheroesPublished onUpdated on11 Comments on Superhero Ideas That Didn’t Make It Through the Revolving Doors

Earlier this year we completed a very successful Superheroes topic in school. However many of the initial ideas I had never made it out of the revolving doors, so to speak.

One of the biggest influences for ideas and content was discovering the Brooklyn Superhero Supply Company and the spin off thoughts that occurred. The Superhero Supply store is a real shop in Brooklyn which sells all sorts of hero paraphernalia, from capes to muscles in a tin. Behind a swinging bookcase is of course a secret lair, a children’s writing and tutoring workshop.

BSHS Front

The Superhero Supply Company is part of 826 National a non-profit organisation in the US to help support school children with homework and writing. Established by Dave Eggers it now has “stores” across the country with a simple aim:

Our goal is to assist students ages six to eighteen with their writing skills, and to help teachers get their classes excited about writing.

Of course what struck me about the concept and especially the Superhero online store, was the level of meta fiction that could be explored. This topic can easily focus on the comic book fiction but the mundaneness of shopping for a suitable replacement cape struck me as such a great idea to work with.

  • Turn your classroom into a store for Superheroes.
  • Try and find a mannequin that you could use to show a superhero outfit.
  • Use the Pixar film The Incredibles.
  • What happens in the everyday life of a Superhero?
  • In drama explore everyday routines with a superhero costume on – queuing for a bus, picking up some milk from the shop.

Brooklyn Superhero Supply Co The online store provided me with a rich vein of ideas for writing beyond children’s own fictional heroes.

The persuasive language used to sell the special products on offer would be a great text to unpick. For example on sale at the online store is Item No. 2503 – STANDARD 58″ SUPERHERO CAPE.

For over two centuries, the BSSCo. Standard 58″ Superhero Cape has been the industry standard in fly-wear for professional heroes. Every cape we ship meets all Superhero Alliance and FAA regulation requirements, and is specially designed for maximum flight control and resistance to air burn.

If you’re a working, flying superhero, the Standard 58″ Superhero Cape is a must-have. Because let’s face it. Without one, you’re just some guy who looks like he’s falling.

Available in a variety of colors.

4447594737 9acfe091c5 oThe act of exploring the sophisticated persuasive devices used in the short product descriptions would be an excellent class activity.

  • Develop your own online Superhero Supply store.
  • Invite children to bring in toys and gadgets that could be rebranded as hero gear.
  • Model how to write a similarly persuasive piece for their own gadgets.
  • Children could role play the real life store or an order by telephone- Superhero and sales assistant, “I’m looking for something a little darker…”
  • Develop a customer newsletter from the store or a flyer.
  • What other things might we find in tins? Muscles, gravity – create your own Hero Basics range
  • Script a radio or TV commercial as a Superhero endorses the store.

Further to these ideas we looked at how the children could design and make their own superhero costumes. This could be done so that they could wear them and then use them in subsequent drama and fictional work.

On reflection we did think that full size costumes for each child might end up quite a complex operation, so considered three alternatives. (1) To buy lots of dolls that could be dressed in miniature (2) Invite some local fashion design students to help (3) Creating a utility belt may be a design project that would allow children to work individually.

Accompanying these little design and make projects children could provide instruction manuals for the products that are created, such as the functions of the belt or the unique features of their cape.

Of course the stores have real products and their sale raises money for the 826 tutoring programmes and running costs. Each store has a different style as explained on the 826 National web page:

San Francisco’s pirate supply store sells glass eyes and one-of-a-kind peglegs, 826NYC’s Superhero Supply Company offers custom-fit capes, Seattle’s Greenwood Space Travel Supply Company sells all your space commuting appurtenances, 826michigan’s Liberty Street Robot Supply & Repair Shop specializes in must-have mechanical conveniences, while 826LA features a time travel store, there’s a secret agent supply store in Chicago, and the Cryptozoology shop in Boston is now open!

Spend any amount of time browsing the products available in the online store and you are bound to be inspired.

It is unfortunate I never got to put some of the ideas I have outlined into action, but I hope that sharing them here may give you the opportunity.

Pic: Jeffrey O. Gustafson

Video of my Voicethread Presentation

Literacy, Teachmeet, VoicethreadPublished onUpdated on4 Comments on Video of my Voicethread Presentation

During BETT 2010 we, the teachers, tookover commercial stands to talk about free tools for the classroom. Here is rare footage of me in the wild (!) presenting about “Why I think every primary classroom should be using Voicethread.”

Here is the Interesting Ways doc for Voicethread. A big thankyou to everyone at BrainPOP UK for letting me takeover their stand and for sharing the video footage.

Spiderman Digital Comic – Exploring the Front Cover

LiteracyPublished on5 Comments on Spiderman Digital Comic – Exploring the Front Cover

Today we began reading Spiderman #1 which is the main text for our Superheroes unit. It is a free digital comic from the Marvel Kids site. I have chosen it because it covers the process of change for Peter Parker’s character and the development into a superhero. Some of the other free comics deal with the heroes in well established storylines. The origins of the superhero outlined in this first issue allow us more learning opportunities, and of course more opportunity to explore the storytelling.

The comic opens in the Marvel Digital Comics Reader (Java) which is a lovely way to view this sort of text. It gives you a variety of different options for viewing. We found the SMART PANELS option was the best to zoom into the details, parts of speech and narration.

Spiderman front cover notes

The first thing we did was to spend time looking at the front cover (see image above) so much is going on. I told the children to take everything they knew about Spiderman, gather it all up and put it in a box in their minds. And then to push that box away. I wanted them to focus on what we can find out from the front cover about Spiderman. We talked about the striking imagery and how it showed movement. We delved further into the background and unpicked the details too. You can see the notes we made together on the screenshot above.

It was a good challenge for the children to try and explain what they can learn from the image, back it up with reference to the “text” without referring to something they already knew. Someone said Spiderman can shoot the web/rope out from his hands. We discussed this carefully as I contested there was no evidence in the image – we did all still have a go at doing Spidey fingers and shouting “Go Web!”

Blue Kryptonite and our Superhero Display

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Angie is the teaching assistant who works with us in Year 5 – she is a star! Together we came up with the idea to do a skyscraper city scene for the backing of our Superheroes display. So far this long board has been a giant underwater scene and then a running track.4269981492 1c87574da4

Today we re-introduced (after a little snow break) our Superheroes topic. The classes had some time working with the Head of Drama from the local secondary school, who came and did a short PSHE/Drama session with them. We spent some time learning about Superman, surely the ultimate superhero. I found out something that I didn’t know – there are lots of different types of Kryptonite, and they all have different effects on Superman.

“His only weakness is a radioactive rock from his home planet, called “kryptonite.” It makes him sick and weak. His enemies use it to hurt him. Blue Kryptonite makes people able to control him using hypnosis, green slowly kills him, black makes him evil, and red has many different effects on him (each piece of red kyrptonite affects him differently). There is also gold, white, and jewel kryptonite.”

You learn something everyday, and it is great that the children told me all about this – I love learning with them.

Anyway who do you think is the ultimate superhero?

(The text was taken from Simple Wikipedia which is a great alternative for kids.)

Teaching Handwriting using an Interactive Whiteboard

IWB, Literacy, My class, SMARTboardsPublished on10 Comments on Teaching Handwriting using an Interactive Whiteboard

We still practice handwriting at school with the children. Since having SMARTBoards I have been using the software to transform the way we teach it and the way we support the children.

I don’t think that handwriting is that important, what is written is more important to me – however the practice does encourage some structure, which can improve legibility.

Instead of just using the board to model the different joins (replace) I use the SMART Recorder to make a little movie of the joins as I model them and play them back, on a loop (tranform). Most IWB software (if any good!) has some sort of video screen capture tool. This allows me to step away from the board and go and support he children as they are working. As the class work they can easily look up and see the modelled join/word playing back on the board.

Before I explain how to do that, here is my routine for teaching any handwriting session. When we begin I remind the children about the 5 Ps.

  • Position – I encourage them to think about the position they are in and where there book should be.
  • Place – are they cramped or squashed? Make sure they have enough room on their table.
  • Pen – I talk about the tripod grip, to watch out for the power grip where the wrist and lower arm is too tense and encourage the precision grip with a freely moving wrist etc.
  • Posture – Can you feel the back of the chair in the lower back. Don’t be too upright and tense, be comfortable and relaxed.
  • Peace – We all need some to do our best.

When talking about the actual joins or words I ask the children to trace them on a giant scale in the air with their fingers, talking about the movements as we complete them. I then ask them to do the same join on the palm of their hand. We repeat the join on our wrists where it is all tickly and then a final time on the back of someone sat next to them. This helps to feel the shape of the letters.

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Megan’s Present / Hand by Aeioux
Attribution-NonCommercial License

Before the children go on to practice in their handwriting books, I complete a modelled example using the video recorder. Here is how you do it:

  1. Open you handwriting page. We created a template on a blank page with the guidelines that suited our scheme.
  2. Open your video screen capture application – we use SMART Recorder.
  3. Select just the small area that you are going to be writing in – not the whole screen or page.
  4. I find it really useful to have the join/word already written with it’s transparency turned down. So that it is just visible, allowing you to trace over the top. If you are doing a simple 2 or 3 letter join model it more than once.
  5. Hit record and complete the modelling of the join or word.
  6. Hit stop and save your capture using the join or word as the file name.
  7. Playback your movie and set it to loop. Move away from the front and sit with children as they are working. With different movies open in different small windows you can have multiple joins so that children can work at their own pace through the work.

This is a good example of how technology can transform what we have been doing for decades. It breathes life into a common task, providing the teacher the opportunity to support the children at the point of writing. If all we do is write them up on the IWB we are just replacing old ways, we may as well do it on a dry-wipe board, or even just a blackboard or find a cave wall and some berries. The video playback is there if the children need it – they don’t need to remember what was done, they can just watch it, that has transformed the way they learn the joins and the behaviours that support that learning.

Within my handwriting sessions there is that important balance between technology and other approaches, a blended take on it all. Tickling the words on our wrists or a partners back is just as important.