The wind blew against the house’s windows, making an eerie tapping sound.

People would walk past the house faster than they would walk past any other, attempting not to look directly at it as they hurried by.

The house was made of a blood red brick, and was overgrown with ivy which surrounded an old wooden door.

The house was owned by a old man who hadn’t been seen for years, and according to all the children in town stole pets and killed them.

There was a post box across the road from this old house and, on the night that this story took place, behind the post box were three young boys: Jack, Fred and William.

“I dare you to go ding dong ditch the house.” Fred whispered to William.

“No way am I going near that place, he kills pets.” replied William, with a small shiver.

“It’s not like you to say no to a dare Will, It must be scary.” assumed Jack.

Just then a shadow like figure appeared in one of the four windows of the house and it seemed to be looking directly at them.They ran.

Later that day they returned to the post box.

“So, have you plucked up the guts to go ding dong the house yet?” asked Fred.

“I told you this morning, I am not going to ring the door bell!” William said hoping that this time Fred would get it.

“So, that means you are a chicken” Fred joked, flapping his arms and clucking comically.  

“No!” yelled William, with an angry tone.

“If I go and ding dong ditch the house, will you shut up?” asked Jack.

“Oh yeah, like you could ever ring the bell over there” Fred sniggered.

“Watch me.” Jack said over his shoulder as he strode towards the house.

Jack surveyed the house, hoping that no one was home.

“Ok, here I go” thought Jack to himself.

Jack’s right index finger rested on the door bell’s button.

“Press the button. You are here now.” Jack said to himself.

Jack pushed down on the door bell with a soft a touch he could, the bell rang inside the house and Jack turned round, putting all of his weight on his heels.

He started to run, he could see the safe post box on the other side of the road.

“Come on!” yelled William.

But William’s cries could not help Jack from falling. Jack’s feet left the ground, he closed his eyes and tried to cover his head with his arms, but that did not help.

Jack opened his eyes and looked towards the post box, William and Fred were gone. Jack knew exactly why they had ran and it chilled him to the bone.

“Are you ok?” a voice asked.

Jack jumped up and turned to see a man with a black shirt, a grey jumper and blue jeans and round glasses.

This is not how Jack expected the owner of the house to look at all.

“Yes” Jack replied in a very high pitched voice.

“Can I help you with something, or were you just here to ring my door bell and run away?” The man asked with the slightest hint of a laugh in his voice.

“The second one, sorry” Jack confessed.

“It’s ok, you’re not the first kid to do that.” The man said, putting on a fake smile.

The man walked back towards the open door, Jack looked past him and saw that the inside of the house was clean, warn looking and had bookshelves from floor to ceiling, filled with books.

The man waved at Jack and closed the door. A smile appeared on Jack’s face as he closed the gate and began to walk down the street. He thought to himself, “What was I scared of again?”

                                                        THE END

Amy and Matt have each written a speech persuading a large crowd at an imaginary Chartist gathering in 19th Century England to seek radical change through peaceful protesting.

The audio was recorded using Garageband with audience sounds and special effects such as reverb added to simulate a large hall and crowd. Images from Wikpedia were assembled in Final Cut Pro X and a ‘Ken Burn’ video effect used to make them move.

Over 15 national Ministries of Education are involved and several Universities. Up to 1000 schools across Europe will eventually be part of the research over the next three and half years, trying out new ways to use technology in teaching and learning.

At the Dragontree, we have been helping by suggesting and testing out some ideas as part of this exciting project. As a ‘live project’ Matthew has used a range of techniques with technology to create a skills centric tutorial for ITEC project partners about using GPS data with Interactive Whiteboards. He even composed some special music for the video.  This was to help teachers understand how they could go about using ubiquitous digital technology in lessons based on using the outdoor environment.

http://itec.eun.org has more information about the research.

The big idea of the ITEC project is “Scenarios”. I suspect many of our home educating followers will see the links with their activities and may want to try them out themselves. Many of the scenarios involve things like recognising non-formal learning activities and a focus on student centered learning and problem solving skills.

You can see examples of some of the first ITEC scenarios here: http://itec.eun.org/web/guest/scenario-library More will be added in later parts of the project.

Here is Matthew’s video. If you have GPS device or GPS enabled SmartPhone you could do similar things using a PC and Google Earth.  This relates to a scenario called “A breath of fresh air”

Today we decided to try our hand at preparing a few Indian dishes. “M” and “A” planned the menu of “Green Lentils with Onions and Garlic; Bastmati Rice with Peas; and Naan Bread”.

Preparation and cooking was a joint effort from “M” and “A”. Along the way, they learned how to plan a meal, considering a variety of dishes and accompaniments; made a list of ingredients that they would need, halving the measurements on the original recipe; thought about the time taken for each dish and how they might need to manage their time to ensure that each dish was ready in time for the meal; divided the tasks fairly and were mindful of safety when using a variety of utensils.

A good afternoon’s work, really. Oh, and it made a yummy tea, too!

See below for some “action shots” :

First, the “Green Lentils, with Onion, Garlic and Cumin”:

And the Naan:

Not bad for a first effort!

M used his personal project time to explain how the 4 stroke engine cycle works using a combination of the working model, video and diagrams.

M is now hoping that the Jet Engine model will whizz along for his birthday!

For the past few months we have been testing Promethean’s prototype of a new Interactive Whiteboard, so it was a good chance to try out some new video analysis lesson ideas for teachers using it.

The software we used is called Tracker and can be found at: http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/

You are not limited to handing out speeding to tickets to reckless sledge riders, you can use it to analyse how pendulums swing or balls bounce.  ”Non-linear equations were never this much fun when dad was at school” (he says!)

By “M”

Snow is an artist.

He is patient and skilled,

He has a palette with only one colour,

And the land is his canvas.

He tries and he tries to make it glisten,

And will not stop until he is done.

He strokes the branches and dabs the hills:

A scene of astonishing beauty.

“M” and “A” have enjoyed the snow which came early this year, so it seemed appropriate to explore the children’s response to the snow in their writing. We tried to think of the snow as a person, or character, that touched our lives for a time.

Here is “A”‘s response:

My Winter Friend

Snow is a giggling girl

Who taps on my window

and calls me outside.

She slides off the trees and lands on me.

When we go sledging

she holds my hand

and pulls me down the hill,

as we squeal and shriek down together.

My other friends come and play with us;

they like her just as much as I do!

“Want to come sledging before I have to go?”

I grab my coat and sledge

and run outside.

She is my merry friend, my mischievious friend.

My winter friend.

We have found the NRICH website to be a treasure trove of maths games and problems which encourage the learner to draw on a range of skills whilst developing problem solving strategies and methods of working through ideas.

This week our maths scheme had us working on algebra, straight line graphs, tables of value and co-ordinates. The children enjoyed tackling a co-ordinates problem whereby they were required to locate a robber in a grid-like city. Through tackling the problem the children were able to develop a strategy for locating the correct co-ordinates in the shortest possible number of moves, trying to beat their own score each time they played.

Great fun …but don’t take our word for it – try it for yourself (and while you are there, check out the rest of the site!):

http://nrich.maths.org/6288