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Google site I created for Early Years PD some useful links and pedagogical ideas etc. 

Another article about this 13 year old whiz kid. Uses his knowledge of the fibonacci sequence to create a kick arse solar cell tree and then patents it!

"Art does not solve problems, but makes us aware of their existence," sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz has said. Arts education, on the other hand, does solve problems. Years of research show that it's closely linked to almost everything that we as a nation say we want for our children and demand from our schools: academic achievement, social and emotional development, civic engagement, and equitable opportunity.

The Literacy Shed is home to a wealth of visual resources that I have collected over my 10 year career as a primary school teacher.   I trawl youtube, vimeo and other sites looking for suitable resources to use in the sheds. The sheds are broadly thematic but sometimes a resource could go in 2 or more sheds, I slot it in where I think it works best. 

Every Australian student will study the arts from their first year of school under the new national arts curriculum, which was released today for public consultation.

For years, almost no-one wanted to talk about education policy. Suddenly everyone is. Of course, just because you can invoke the name of "Gonski" doesn't mean you've read the Sydney businessman's talismanic report on schools funding reform, much less understood it. Schools funding is a complex topic. There's an alphabet soup of abstract acronyms (SES, AGSRC) and a spaghetti diagram of administrative structures. Funding for a particular school could include money from parents, from a major church, from a state or territory, and from Canberra. The formula is set with a bewildering array of equations, fed by the demographic chance of Census data.

Everyone loves paper planes. These are ace! Says my 3 year old. It was a great morning of paper plane making and testing. 

cool for early years counting by 2s

Another great literacy site, particularly for early years.

Great post for level 3 to 4. A list of contempory books for children 8 years+ This would be very useful for students and teachers.

Great list of music teachers who blog

Open ended maths tasks suitable for Years 3-6

Students learn mathematics by DOING mathematics, and not by watching someone else do mathematics. In recent years there has been an explosion in the number of high quality digital resources available from the Net and elsewhere that allow students to investigate, explore or consolidate the topics they are learning in their maths class.

A range of different activities, proformas and posters for the "getting to know you" stage of the school year.

An alternative to big books for the early years 

Check this kid out! I wonder if he has a blog? Either way, this is a great piece by a 13 year old on fibonacci stuff. 

A fantastic read, if not for the fascinating history of reading education in the US. However it totally applies to the Australian context too.

Worth having a look if anything to inform students that they exist. They may want to use them perhaps for a literacy lesson.