Sudoku and other things

[Margaret Allen]

Hi

I would like to create a Hot Topic with a slight difference......

I think that one of the most powerful potential for board exploitation is first thing in the morning when the children arrive into the classroom.

All that lovely discussion, negotiation, phse stuff....oooohhhhh.....

Obviously activities need to be independent of an adult and so some sort of "system" needs to be put in place - timings/turn taking/rules etc....

Attached is a flp. with the beginnings of some ideas that could be generated to enable the board to be used from the moment they come in.

A couple of art activities (well artist copies!!) and three Sudoku activities, but a new one using 12 squares. I spent a very long time travelling by plane this weekend and finished off with the 12 "super Sudoku" from the The Mail on Sunday.

The Beauty of the Sudoku ideas is that all you have to do is to get a Sudoku book and fill in the grids with the already offered examples!

Below is a link which gives a good overview for those of you in the dark!

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=348348&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=

Anyway, I think this could easily work in a tutor group scenario in Secondary as well as in a Primary school. Come on lets get children talking to each other as soon as they meet in the classroom.

Any other good ideas for our Morning Starters?

[Sarah Carpenter]

Some nice ideas Margaret.

I often have the whiteboard on in the first 10 minutes of the morning, practising handwriting, playing games etc. or simply being mesmerised by the windows visualisations as we listen to music! :cool:

Next week though I am planning to use the downloadable jigsaws available from www.activityvillage.co.uk - many different themes - have a look. I have added my suggestion and hopefully an embedded jigsaw to the last page of your flipchart and then reposted it.

+wave+

[AirSkeeter]

I used to start my class with a block puzzle on Monday, Sudoku on Tues and Thurs, and logic puzzles on Wed and Friday. It's a great warm up and the kids are learning and don't really know that they are....

Great one Margaret....BTW, did you come to the US and not tell me??? :mad:

[sartley]

I use both Jigs@w - which, if you buy the content free version is about £7 and so you can create your own jigsaws with your own pictures - and also an image version of Sudoku in RE (like using the animals in Margaret's example). Great for introducing a new topic, or for review or discussion. I'm sure these could be used in many other curriculum areas in the same way.

[davidlloyd]

Stacey Hall, a teacher at Thames primary in Blackpool, uses her board as a registration device. A flipchart page is divided into moods: happy, sad, angry etc. When each child comes in they drag their photo from the resource library onto the appropriate part of the page. Great phse!

[daverosthorn]

I found this on my Personalised Google homepage:

http://wiki.ehow.com/Solve-a-Sudoku

:D

[Danny Nicholson]

also check out

http://sudokuforkids.com/

lots of pdf files of sudoku grids - some very simple 4x4 ones, to regular 9x9 ones

use the activ camera to import into flipchart files ;)

[Danny Nicholson]

Oh.. and make your own sudoku grids using this Excel template (its not a sudoku generator, just allows you to enter grids you find in the newspapers etc)