A baboon woke up in his gold-covered bed and thought to himself, “I think I will become a nurse.” Gregory went to the internet, searched www.getajob.com and found his dream job. Two weeks later he got a call from a man with bad news. “We don’t employ baboons,” the man said. “I say, that’s discrimination,” said Gregory in his gold-covered bed.
Gabby (aged 13)
In the middle of the night Antboy woke up in his big bed, in his big house, under the river. He’s a superhero who knew his ant friends were in trouble when they rang for help. He grabbed his super hero axe and sword, jumped into his superhero ant-boat and sped to guess where? Ant City. Antboy used his axe and sword to knock the tooth out of the evil spikey anteater who was scaring his ant friends. The evil spikey anti-eater ran away, his ant friends went home and Antboy went back to his big bed.
Tex. (aged 6)
Filed under Childrens Story, creative writing, Short Story, Uncategorized
On the day the circus came to Bundaberg Fred Fredrickson was training to be an electrician when he saw the poster of someone training a lion.
As he was a very brave man, he decided he wanted to have that job so he went to the circus and asked if he could be a lion tamer too. They said “Yes, but you have to train for a long time because you have to be ready for anything the lion would do, like try to bite you.”
Next month, Fred amazed everyone by riding the biggest, the baddest, and the bravest lion ever. On the day the circus left Bundaberg, Fred went with them.
Dardo (aged 9)
Filed under Childrens Story, creative writing, Uncategorized
It was Friday, October 21, 2016 when two youthful men who were happily relaxing in the depths of the bubbling basalt-lava rock pools in Hilo in the Big Island of Hawaii, heard gunshots. Sib, who was raised in New Orleans, and Oliver, a famous Russian boxer, soon found themselves in colossal trouble when they were thrown into a truck heading off to jail. Five minutes into their journey, on the edge of a steep cliff, the back wheels were shot, a bomb blew the rear doors off the truck and they were hauled out of captivity by two mysterious men. The strangers took them to a cave inside the volcano because they thought they were rescuing the people shooting at the rock pools. Sib and Oliver wondered if they could get out alive.
Emlyn (aged 11)
Filed under Childrens Story, creative writing, Short Story, Uncategorized
Jack was happily in his secret basement on Monday morning. Jack’s superhero name was Night Fighter and he was cooking breakfast until … beep! beep! Beep! … “Oh No!” the city was in trouble. Night Fighter suited up and flew to the city to see his old enemy called Death Shot had escaped. Night Fighter put his knockout darts in his gun and waited until he saw the T-Rex looking straight at him. Suddenly he wished he had stayed at home in his secret basement.
Alex G (aged 8)
Filed under Childrens Story, creative writing, Short Story, Student's Story, Uncategorized
Long ago Blood-eater was a dragon who lived on an island that was surrounded by monsters and volcanoes that spewed out lava. Blood-eater was a green villain who sucked blood from superheros. He saw police on his island and got scared but he remembered he could suck blood out of the police. Then the police shot the bullets that makes dragons good and he hugged the police. Blood-eater went back home to his island of monsters and waited until the good bullets wore off.
Ari (aged 8)
Filed under Childrens Story, Uncategorized
The downside to the information age is the decrease in fine motor skills used for writing.
This is a problem I am seeing more often as laptops and tablets replace the use of pad and pen. An increasing number of students are unable to form legible letters of the alphabet or write numbers clearly enough so they may read them thirty seconds later.
Some students going into Year 8 are incapable of writing between the lines of a paper or forming numbers within the squares of a quad ruled page. Students in Year 5 are unable to produce or read their name in cursive script. These students are struggling with the fine motor skills required to help them to learn.
I have recently finished reading an article by Maria Konnikova, “What’s Lost as Handwriting Fades?”, which suggests evidence is emerging of a greater link between handwriting and learning. It appears children learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand.
Learning is a complicated process. When we reproduce letters, or anything else, by hand a plan is required before executing the action. The end result is highly variable in that it will not exactly represent the original. Learning to identify variable representations is important to decoding letters when reading.
The research by Virginia Berninger, a psychologist at University of Washington, indicated that when a child who composed text by hand (either printing or cursive) “They not only consistently produced more words more quickly than they did on the keyboard, but expressed more ideas.”
There is also a suggestion of different neuro-pathways being developed in the brain when a child progresses on from printing to cursive writing.
Research at the University of California has reported laboratory and real-world studies of students learning better when they take notes by hand than when they type on a keyboard.
I ask you “Is it time to throw away the pen and paper and adopt the technology of the keyboard?” Was it time to give up walking when we invented the car?
My suggestion to help build a better student is to continue to use the old fashioned copy book so your student may practise and learn to form letters and numbers. Encourage them to practise twenty minutes a day until they are proficient with writing the printed word. Allow this to develop into the practice of cursive writing so they may be able to record classroom notes in secondary school, lecture notes at university or record the minutes of a business meeting.
Filed under Building Better Students, Learning, Uncategorized
Sometimes there just doesn’t seem to be enough hours in a day to fit in what needs to be done, and there seems to be not enough weeks in the year for the school curriculum.
There are forty academic weeks to the Australian school year, little enough time for what needs to be learned. The problem is the school year is not exactly forty weeks. There are a number of public holidays to be removed, and then there are “student free” days also to be taken out. If we remove the school camp that all students seem to be attending these day, sick days and time spent out of school for one reason or another (sports, museums, etc.) then we have a shortened academic year.
This all puts our teachers, and students, under pressure as a larger amount of acquired knowledge is squeezed into a reduced amount of attended time.
“A” initially stood for Academic Year but now I think it should stand for “Attendance”.
So, how do you make a better student? Don’t add to the problem by reducing your student’s school attendance by removing them from school for a week’s holiday because it is more convenient.
Filed under Learning, Tuition Tips, Uncategorized
Not so long ago in a mini flower lived an unexpected bee. He had back stage nerves about dancing. It was almost time and bee thought about it and he danced with his little toes and won. He bought enough food for his poor family. Today he is buying pollen flour to flower his whole life while dancing.
Ella (aged 9)
Filed under Uncategorized
One dark cold winter, a baby polar bear named Amy was born. She had a silvery coat that everyone loved and she had a beautiful flower in her ear. One afternoon the baby polar bear ran away and saw a hunter kill a penguin and she was so scared that she ran back home. The next day she saw the same hunter again and he was going to kill her Mum. The little polar bear Amy bit him so hard that he cried and she saved her mum and they went home.
Jemima (aged 8)
Filed under Childrens Story, creative writing, Student's Story, Uncategorized
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