sjbwriting

To Risk or Not to Risk?

sjbwriting — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 22:00:14 +0000

He locked eyes with his opponent, looking for some tell-tale twitch. Nothing. He considered his own cards. They were good, but were they good enough? The pot on the table seemed to mock him.

Beads of perspiration broke out on his forehead. To risk or not to risk? Nervously, he lay down his cards. Four tens. Holding his breath, he waited, staring at the backs of his opponent’s cards. It all depended now on the flip side of those cards.

His teenage son threw down four jacks, whooped with joy and scooped up the pot – all £1.97p of it!

This post is part of the 100 word challenge for grown ups at Julia’s Place.

B is for…

sjbwriting — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 09:00:36 +0000

B is for…Breakfast. It’s called the most important meal of the day for a very good reason. When you wake up in the morning you haven’t eaten for about twelve hours. Even if you don’t feel hungry, you need to prepare your body for learning. Without breakfast you won’t be able to concentrate properly and you will find your lessons more difficult, so make sure you get up 10 minutes earlier every day to give yourself time to eat a bowl of cereal or a slice of toast.

Oliver’s Lizard

sjbwriting — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:54:48 +0000

This week has been a shared prompt for adults and children for the 100 word challenge, and so in that spirit I have written a sequel to one of the children’s challenge pieces. You can find part one of the following story here – it would be lovely if you could read and leave her a comment. To see what the rest of the children have done with this prompt, why not visit their site and give them some encouragement by leaving comments for a few of them.

The lizard relaxed in the luxurious warmth of Oliver’s pocket. Feeling ecstatic to have escaped the claustrophobia-inducing confines of his glass tank, he explored his new surroundings.

Under his tummy was something hard and sticky and delicious smelling. Tentatively he flicked his forked tongue. Was that…strawberry? Yes! He’d seen children eating these things – they called them ‘sweets’. The lizard licked it again, savouring the sugary taste.

“I’m really going to enjoy being Oliver’s pet lizard,” he said to himself. “It wasn’t my fault the glass broke – but I’m glad it did.”

If only he’d known then the fate that awaited him at Oliver’s house.

The lovely Anna Halford has continued this story, so if you enjoyed this, please do go and read part 3.

The Joke’s on Who? – Part 5

sjbwriting — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 09:00:43 +0000

This story was started many weeks ago for a game of consequences on the 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups. Snagglewordz wrote part one and then I took up the pen and wrote parts two andthree. Ventahl wrote part four and that should have been the end. Except that something about this week’s prompt drew me back to the story. So here, several weeks late, is part 5.

The Reverend James placed his teacup on the floor and settled himself back in his seat. “Goodness Gracious! I beg everyone’s pardon!”

Grandma cackled raucously. This was her best Christmas ever.

On the drive home David’s expression was icy and grim.

“It wasn’t my fault,” Susan pleaded. “You’re the one who suddenly decided we had to set out 3 hours early in case it snowed. I barely had time to wrap the presents, and I couldn’t find the labels.”

David’s face broke into a grin. “Did you see his face? I don’t think he’ll be round for tea for a while. God bless Grandma!”

Now why not go and see what the children did with the same prompt. Their challenge pieces are at 100WC.

National Enquiry

sjbwriting — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:44:13 +0000

There are some people I chat to on Twitter who I have come to regard as friends, even though I’ve never met them. This piece of writing is dedicated to one of those friends. I’m mentioning no names, as I know she is keeping her blog private just for this week while we do a joint challenge with the children, but she’ll know who she is as soon as she reads it – as will most of you.

This post was written as part of the 100 Word Challenge for Grown Ups over at Julia’s Place.

An enquiry was launched today into baggage handling procedures at all UK airports, in a bid to discover exactly how a tropical lizard, which has been causing havoc to local animals, was able to gain entry to the country.

“It wasn’t my fault,” said one baggage handler, who asked not to be named. “I’m just paid to empty the cargo hold, not to analyse what’s in there.”

Footage from airport security cameras clearly shows a 3-foot long, aquamarine spotted lizard riding twice around the baggage reclaim carousel, before hitching a lift on a trolley that took it straight through the Nothing to Declare channel.

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STOP PRESS: Someone sent me a link today to this news story which seems to be a bizarre case of truth mirroring fiction.

The Last Day

sjbwriting — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 07:58:44 +0000

This post was written as part of the 100 Word Challenge for Grown-Ups over at Julia’s place.

After
Sirens screamed. Birds fell silent. The sky turned red, then black as ash started to fall. Darkness came. Streets filled with people, unsure where to go or what to do. The looting started. Then the fighting: best friends, brothers, fathers and sons.

Those who died that day were the lucky ones. For the rest a slower death awaited: cold, hunger, sickness.

Before
The president regarded his horror-struck staff, who were backing towards the door, desperately awaiting his order to evacuate to the underground bunker. “I had no choice! They threatened us!” He took his finger off the red button. “It wasn’t my fault.”

Teaching Number Bonds

sjbwriting — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:00:03 +0000

Number bonds. We all use them in our adult life without even realising it. When adding up items in our basket at the supermarket, we know that 3p and 7p is 10p, and that 2x 50p is £1. When we buy something for £5.60 at the market and hand over a £10 note, we know that £5.60 + 40p is £6 and another £4 makes £10, so we know to expect £4.40 change. Knowing our number bonds is extremely useful, but a lot of children struggle to learn them.

Over the years I have successfully taught many children how to remember their number bonds. As with times tables, the key is to find multi-sensory ways to teach, and to make practising fun.

Some children respond very well to visual clues, and to help these I use colour sticks. These are strips marked out in 10 sections and coloured in contrasting colours, so that children can see clearly that 2 red squares plus 8 green squares equals 10 squares altogether, and that 8 green squares plus 2 red squares also equals 10 squares altogether. They are small enough to hold in the hand, and I tend to use them in conjunction with other methods. The children I tutor find them really useful to refer to during games.

Snap and pelmanism are always popular games, and I have made two sets of cards for this. The first set is colour-coded, so when the children turn the cards over there is a visual clue as to whether the two cards add up to 10. When they turn over the first card, I encourage them to work out what number they need to find to make 10. When the children are a little more confident I switch to the black and white ones to remove the visual clue, but we still play the same games to keep some familiarity.

Another card game I play is Imprison the Villain, which is played in the same way as Old Maid/Donkey/Chase the Ace. I use these lovely monster cards, which I downloaded from Primary Resources. I coloured mine in for added attraction and laminated them for durability.

I have one last set of number bonds cards which I made especially for one boy. He was struggling with number bonds, and as his home language was Bengali not English, as an experiment I found the numbers in Bengali on the internet and made him a set of dual language cards. They have the numbers in words and figures in Bengali and English. They worked! When he saw them his eyes lit up and he pointed excitedly saying “I know these numbers!” The cards really increased his motivation and it didn’t take him long to learn them.

There are also a couple of fun number bonds games on Sue Kerrigan’s Let Me Learn website. I have Number Bombs and the similar but seasonal Elf Splat. There are two game boards for each of these games, one for addition and one for subtraction, which are both versatile enough to use for number bonds to 10 and 20. I haven’t tried this game with any girls yet, but the boys love it, and now I get greeted with “Are we going to play Number Bombs today?” My answer is always “We don’t need to now – you already know your number bonds to ten!” However because it is so popular we do sometimes play it at the end of a session as a reward for good work!

Another game that children seem to love is ping pong. I can’t remember where I first heard about this game, but it’s played like a game of table tennis except that you bounce numbers backwards and forwards instead of a ball. I begin by establishing a rhythm – I say ‘ping’ and the child replies ‘pong’. Then I start calling numbers from 1-10 and the child gives me the corresponding number that adds to 10. As we speak we swing an imaginary table tennis paddle to hit the numbers. For extra fun and an exercise involving whole body movement, stand opposite sides of the table with real paddles.

For progression to 20, I have found a dominoes game which you will find if you follow the link to Primary Resources and type dominoes in the search box. It takes a little practise because many children don’t know how to play dominoes, but once they get the hang of it, it proves quite a popular game.

For moving children on and helping them to see that when they know their number bonds to ten, and understand the pattern for making twenty, it’s quite easy to use this knowledge to find bonds for any multiples of ten, Sue is developing some resources based around football which highlight the patterns for making 30. I have been lucky enough to trial these resources. There is a write-on wipe-off card which explains how to use your knowledge of number bonds to make 30, and then a booklet to practise in. There is also a game to play – similar to Number Bombs, but with the added excitement that if you land on certain squares you can get ‘sent off’ and you have to remove one of your counters. I have only recently starting trialing this game, but it is proving popular so far. Finally, the set includes a match report card, where you can tick off each goal as you achieve them: working out number bonds to 10 on fingers, knowing number bonds to 10 from memory etc.

Games are fun, but sometimes children need other ways to make those numbers stick, and word association is often helpful. I have found a few number bonds rhymes on the internet, but I find it works better when the children write their own. I have helped children to write their own rhymes, such as “5 plus 5 like to go for a drive” or “7 plus 3 go to Devon for their tea”. They then illustrate each of the rhymes with pictures such as two number 5s in an open top car, or the numbers 7 and 3 having a picnic under a sign saying Devon.

One Year 6 girl I worked with found it really hard to remember which numbers added to ten, and she was really down-hearted at being so far behind her classmates. We used this word association method and she found that she could remember her own poem and the pictures really easily. To begin with she said her rhyme every time before deciding which numbers went together. Eventually the numbers became so well embedded that she was able to dispense with the rhyme.

By the time she moved on to secondary school, she was still behind her classmates, but she now knew that she could achieve in maths which really increased her confidence. And that’s why I really love my job.

For maths and English tutoring in the north Birmingham, Sandwell and Walsall areas, visit www.sjbteaching.com

Related posts: Teaching the Times Tables

Left-handed

sjbwriting — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:58:04 +0000

This post is part of the 100 word challenge over at Julia’s Place.

Grandma hated school. She went back in the days when being left-handed was a criminal offence. Faced with the choice between being punched frequently in the back, or struggling to hold a pen in her right-hand, she opted for the latter. From then on she concentrated so hard on forming letters with her non-dominant hand, that learning anything was beyond her reach. Knowledge and understanding were for others. She was stupid and lazy – her teachers told her so. But she had her moment of triumph on the day she was the only child in the class who could correctly spell Wednesday.

All She Ever Wanted

sjbwriting — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 23:21:17 +0000

This post is part of the 100 word challenge over at Julia’s Place. Before I begin this week’s challenge, I’m going to apologise in advance to all the 100WCGU folk for any odd commenters they get on their blog. I seem to be growing quite a collection of commenting personas. Here, I’m Sally-Jayne, although if I forget to log out of my blog then sometimes I’m SJBwriting. Over at the children’s version of the 100WC I’m Sally-Jayne (Team 100WC), but my niece also takes part so when I comment on her writing I’m Aunty Sally-Jayne. I’m convinced that one of these days I’m going to forget where I am and comment using the wrong persona. So if you should get a comment on your writing from Aunty Sally-Jayne, I promise you I’m not mad – just forgetful.

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Sir – I quit! You want to know why? Every year for birthdays and Christmases you bought her what she wanted: toys, dolls houses, a mobile phone, shoes, spray tans, manicures, her own stylist, a Porsche with chauffeur …but you never gave her what she needed: your time, your love, your attention, bedtime stories, family picnics, boundaries, discipline, a sense of responsibility…

And now you have the audacity to stand here, full of blame, asking me to explain why your six year old daughter has gone off the rails? I’m just the hired help. Take a look in the mirror, sir. The answer’s right there.

Critique of Dangerous Creatures

sjbwriting — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 20:45:54 +0000

This week’s 100 word challenge from Julia’s Place was the most daunting yet. We had to choose somebody else’s piece from last week and write a critique of it. My first thought was “I really don’t want to do this” and I can really sympathise with TaoChild’s battle of the instincts. It really does feel quite arrogant, as if I believe the quality of my writing to be so superior to everyone else’s that I am able to pass judgement. In fact the opposite is true. I’m completely in awe of quite a lot of the 100 word challenge for grown-ups folk. However, a small group of us decided that perhaps if we critiqued each other’s work maybe it would be less scary. So here it is. This is a critique of Anna Halford’s ‘Dangerous Creatures’.

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This reads just like an actual newspaper report, with really good use of the passive voice, witness reports and the alliterative ‘prized pets’. It was also clever to include the title/headline within the 100 words.
The content is delightfully humorous, and the words paint wonderful pictures of this lizard creature behaving inappropriately towards other animals.
The writer may wish to reconsider the size of the creature, as the idea of an animal the size of a large family dog does not seem to fit with it being concealed amongst baggage. However, in my opinion this just adds to the humour.
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That’s the end of my 100 words, but I have more to say. Because I feel that this incongruity adds to the humour so much that I can actually picture a horrified business woman opening her case, only to find that the suit and shoes she had packed for a really important meeting are missing, and in their place is an over-sized aquamarine lizard shouting “Surpise!”