Bits & Bobs

So, Wii Week in Year 3! I started off this morning by asking my class about their homework and how it had gone. I'd set 'Serengeti' PAL (parent assisted learning) using this site . The feedback was great, everyone had enjoyed it, had learnt many things and so had their parents! Literacy this week is writing a short non-chron about the animals that they researched using Switch Zoo last Friday. We talked about how to write a paragraph correctly - topic/development and concluding sentences - as well as reminders to make sure they check their individual writing targets and try their best to meet them! I'd made a finished 'ript' about the African Elephant so they got to see where they are aiming this week and I also used that to help remind about the structure of a paragraph...drawing all over it to illustrate my points!

Two teams practised on the Wii at lunchtime, we talked about how important it is that each team can work well together and that not everyone will be using the Wii controls...that's a toughie because everyone wants to! I tried to solve this by talking about the directions being the most important job and that the success of the team depends on how well this job is done....that did work mostly!

I am amazed at how well this works to inspire good teamwork. The groups today were easily able to talk about how it needs to be to be successful - from talking in a nice (not shouty) voice, to being encouraging if someone doesn't quite go the right way, get the photo first time etc...Fab!

We then had an afternoon that started with us visiting KS1, Reception & Nursery to give them our PPT Advent calendar - full of animations and messages - and then went back to the Serengeti for a 'Where in the World'/habitats/how to look after animals etc

I used Google Earth right from the start, loading - where's Africa? Where's Tanzania? How do we find the Serengeti? My class loved this - what an impressive classroom tool it is - we looked at the photos it gave us and knew how to do this from our google maps session a couple of weeks ago. We talked about the landscape, the differences and what we could work out from the things
we saw...such as dry brown grass = hot weather.

We then talked about the roads there, somebody asked why they weren't like ours, ie tarmac This led to a great discussion about who is important there, humans or animals? I also showed a couple of safari like films I had previously downloaded and checked from utube. The ones I'd chosen had lots of film about elephants and rhinos which led to another good discussion about tusks, horns and hunters....great session, all fully engaged...

Then on to afternoon play and another group on the Wii....I think I will need to give up all my lunchtimes etc this week in aid of this project, not that I mind at all and next time I will know that I need to make time for the children to get used to the game!..

So far so good!

Yesterday I somehow managed to delete my last post whilst editing it which was annoying!...I've had quite a few more thoughts and ideas going around in my head since the first Wii session last Friday.

After that session it was obvious to me that plans I had were too big! I am very good at having 'grand plans!'

The main problem is that I think the children need much more time to get used to this Wii game which might not be that easy to provide. I plan on having the teams of 5/6 coming in at lunchtime on a rota so that they can each get used to their role before our big day on Friday.
Their 'jobs' will be..

• Navigating on the Wii
• Taking photos on the Wii
• Giving clear instructions and directions on how to achieve the Wii objectives (2 children)
• Taking photos with digital camera to use for their reports

Last week they used Switch Zoo for part of their research. I'd prepared a ppt that had various photos of animals that live in the Serengeti with links to the info page about them. The children took notes about 3 different animals. Their task in literacy this week is to continue with their work on how to write paragraphs correctly by writing a factual report about each of the animals they chose. They will then type this up in our ICT session and will use it as part of their final session when they use 'ript' to create their final report. These ript pages will then be printed and made into a book that contains information about some of the animals in the Serengeti.

I also plan on having this finished book uploaded onto our DB so that they can share their work with their parents.

During the week we'll have 3 afternoon sessions about this project,

• geography - where in the world/landscape and how it's different to ours - use the Wii + utube videos
• an introduction to habitats and why these animals live there/endangered animals
• art - a map of the Serengeti with the animals they have written about

On Friday the big focus will be on the use of the Wii and the good teamwork necessary to get the best out of their Wii session - I'm thinking of giving rewards for the number of objectives achieved - ie the higher the number of objectives achieved the better the teamwork will have been. After each Wii session I'll download the photos taken with the digital camera so that the children will be able to use them in their 'ript' reports.

When the children aren't using the Wii they will be in the ICT suite creating their final report.

Yesterday was 'story telling' and then 'story writing' day....My class have loved doing their work on stories in familiar settings. The sketching and painting of story boards has been particular popular - many children chose to write their story from their painted story board rather than their written planning and said that it was 'much easier this way because they could 'see' what to write...maybe a lesson to learn about how to help children write successfully?!

There has been a lot of good writing and meeting of individual writing targets, the story below is the best one. I was blown away by it. It's as the child wrote it, she's 7.

The images below are made by Microsoft Auto-collage, it's all of their story boards and is the current desktop background in Year 3!

I've just had an exciting meeting with Dughall - twitter fame person who many of you know and follow. He's my class governor and is coming in for his first visit in a couple of weeks. I am keen to have a go with a Wii in my class after reading about all the wonderful things that many teachers are doing and I also know that Dugh is keen on this idea too....perfect opportunity with his class visit to put it altogether.

The first thing to sort out was the technical issues I had - 33 children, small room, wires everywhere...not ideal. We have a great ICT technician who came up with the idea of using a different projector ( ie not the one attached to the ceiling) and projecting onto the back wall. Brilliant! This solves the safety issues. Dugh solved the problem of where to put the Wii bar thing (sure there is a techie name for it that I don't know..) by asking for a bit of blu-tack. It was duly stuck on the wall under the image and it was all working beautifully!

The next thing to sort out was what to do with African Safari, I had a bit of ppa this afternoon and had jotted down my ideas - I had thought of linking it to databases but changed my mind. Before we got going with that we played the game as Dugh hadn't seen it and needed to know what it was all about. Despite me having seen it already I still managed to think that trees in the distance were giraffes...ho hum. Dugh was much better at navigating than me - I take a mean photo!

I wondered if it would be possible to upload the photos the children would take in the game to use in our ICT suite- we don't think it is but if you know better then please comment!..Steve, our great ICT man suggested that the children take a digital photo with the class camera and that solved that problem!

My idea is that the children split into eight groups of four. Each group will have a focus, each child will have a role. The overall objective will be to describe using multi sensory language - this will follow on from their current literacy - in whatever their task is.

Each group will use the Ript programme on which to write up and display their findings...still toying with the idea of some using Ript and some using Animoto.

These are ideas for themes for the 8 groups -

• giraffes
• elephants
• landscape including water and plants
• vultures
• hyenas
• lion
• wildebeast
• habitats
• respecting the animals re distance/disturbance
• Serengeti - although most likely this will be for all

I plan to have a carousel of activities. We will have 2 - maybe 3 rooms to use, one of which is the ICT suite. Definitely one Wii, maybe 2.

When a group is using the Wii these are the roles we are thinking they could have;

• 2 playing - one photo, one navigating - this can be set to alternate
• 1 using the digital camera to take photos
• 1 using the easispeak microphone to record a running commentary - focus on being precise and not waffling!

I still have a lot of sorting out to do but this is the basic idea. I'm going to give them an afternoon exploring African S on Friday and maybe set homework around the animals/Serengeti so that it's not all completely new when Dugh comes in for the day.

I then went onto thinking about maths. At the moment Year 3 are doing a lot of work on number bonds and I'm trying different ways of trying to get them to see that if they know that 5 + 5 = 10 then that information can help them to know what 25 + 5 is etc.

So my mind started playing with rhythms and rhymes...

I'm going to use 2Simple Music to help make it sound funky - there's a part of it that will provide a pulse. This is what I'm going to try...hope it makes sense!

I'm thinking of it in 8 - 8 quite up tempo beats - of the 2Simple pulse and I shall teach it in 2 bits before I put the whole thing together. Hopefully it'll provide a great starter, be a learning aid and a memory aid for my class.

So - speaking the rhyme....

four add six is ten yeah, four add six -teen is twen - ty.








The 'teen' bit has a bit of funky sync to it as it goes across the beat.

I'm a bit stuck on the rest of the tens numbers because they each have 2 syllables - thirty, fifty, sixty etc instead of one syllable as in 'six'teen so it doesn't have the same funky sync as the teens.
I might do it straight in a very robotic style or a rap or change the number of beats...will see what I come up with on my next walk! I finding walking great for ideas and practising little rhythmic ideas such as this one...

In Year 3 we're lucky enought to have a view of the school meadow. A couple of weeks ago I put the bird feeders up again along with those half coconut fat ball things.

I love being able to look out of the window and see birds feeding. It's just getting going now and the children are learning to recognise the birds on the feeder - blue tits, robins, female partridges and squirrels so far!

Last year I put sunflower seeds in the feeders and had to fill them up every two minutes so this year I decided to do mixed seed rather than sunflower seed...not very popular so might change back!

Last week - after only a couple of days of the feeders being up - we had a lesser spotted woodpecker! Woohoo!! It was kind enough to stay while and both feed from the feeder and hammer into a nearby tree....we've not seen it since then so fingers crossed it comes back.

We had woodpeckers last year on the feeders with peanuts - completely destroyed by the squirrels - so might put one up again.

I love teaching them about nature, there seems to be so much in this life we have these days that isn't anything to do with nature..hopefully by the end of Y3 they will at least be able to recognise a few birds.

Hmm, Friday things....capital for things or not? I decided not but went against my teacher code which is why I did it!


Children in Need - I had a great idea that the children in my class could pay a small amount for the pleasure (!) of putting a spotty sticker in my hair...this did seem like a GOOD idea...but they preferred to have stickers for themselves rather than me so I put them in. BAD IDEA!

I have pulled out quite a lot of hair in removing them...still, good cause!

My Furbles disc finally arrived - it's taken about 3 weeks - and am looking forward to playing with that this weekend when I plan data handling. (It's Friday and am just wondering whether to have curry delievered this eve...)

So,back to class and stories. Today they all chose a story formula to follow, most chose the 'Warning' story because they felt a connection with it. ... We agreed that if somebody says 'don't do that' the first thing that you want to do is to do it!

One child - quite a talented writer said that he didn't think that any of the story patterns worked for him, so we chatted and he decided on a different one - 'Losing something story.' Everybody finished choosing but not all finished their list of ideas re their stories...so some have a bit of catch up to do on Monday during reading.

We then went onto databases - I find this tough, doesn't grab me much but I try to make it interesting. We use Textease Database CT which seems straightforward enough.

I did input on databases before the ICT lesson - I'd made one about trolls and got them all to make up info about a troll....Did you not know that the world needs a database about trolls just in case you have one living in your garden?!

That went well but we had some teething troubles re the software - my fault I think - so the lesson didn't quite go to plan. If you use textease database ct do you find it easy to save? Is there a setting I need to sort out or something? Any help would be very welcome...

This afternoon we carried on with databases, this time we did one - in class not ICT suite - about Pudsey Bear that we will input next week...The world DOES need to know what he does for the rest of the year!

Then a mountain of things to give out and then it's the weekend!... Hoorah :-)

Ah well, another day and another post but isn't that what new toys do? Inspire us to keep using them?!

So today in Lit we started our work on how to find a plot for our stories. If you read a previous post by me you'll know I am a bit of a Pie Corbett fan! I have a wonderful book by him called 'How to Teach Fiction Writing at KS2,' and am using his ideas to help me to teach how to write a plot. I love the way he steals things - we steal words and phrases ALL the time. We steal from authors whose books we are reading, we steal from each other and we steal from anyone who might visit...So stealing a plot formula came quite naturally to us all!

In his book Pie talks about how most well-known stories follow a formula - The Wishing story, The Warning Story, The Red Riding Hood kind of plot, The Finding something story..etc etc So I have followed his ideas and made them my own to suit my class.

We started off by studying the plot of Little RRH altogether on the carpet. We worked out the setting, the main character and a couple of special details about her before we headed into 'plot' land. I used an online version of the story and we discussed it afterwards...ie what happens first, 2nd etc

They then went away and had to sequence the story - 11 strips of paper each (x 33 children..) in piles on tables. They all had to go on a walk round the room to pick up all 11 strips and they did very well! Most managed to sequence all of it, some got a couple of bits muddled but I think that they all got the hang of the idea that good stories follow a logical sequence and it's not 'a bit of this and then a bit of that'...

In the last 10 mins of the end of the lesson I introduced the idea of stealing a plot. We looked at the Little RRH formula and quickly made up a new story that followed that pattern.

'Hanley was a small cheerful boy aged 9 who was asked to deliver some very special papers to a house in the woods in a tiny village in France! He was a bit stuck as to how he would get to France when along came a friendly guy called 'Joe' who just happened to have a rocket that was ready to launch and was actually going to France!
Unbeknown to them a nearby rattlesnake heard their conversation and plotted to blow up the rocket because he knew what was special about the papers that Hanley had been asked to deliver....They were made out of GOLD PAPER and were the only ones like this in the whole wide world. The rattlesnake WANTED them! They were also guarded by 5 special jewels...anyone who tried to to open the case in which the papers were held was put under a spell by the jewels...only the rightful owner could take them without being put under a spell. The rattlesnake thought that as snakes weren't human he could steal the papers and not be put under a spell.....

Obviously I have embellished it a bit but the bones of it all came entirely from them. Then it was lunchtime and we'd run out of time!...We ended it on a cliffhanger! They were all very engaged and full of ideas for the Hanley story. We made it up aurally bit by bit - always following the formula on the IWB. I shall do another session on aural storytelling to a different formula tomorrow!...cant' wait!

We now have GREAT story characters in Year 3 - lots of great ideas and effort - well done them! I started by going over the characters from yesterday - used the visualiser - and talked about if characters were believable or not...in relation to the setting of the woods. I had prepared a ppt and made up a few names. We quickly brainstormed the names to try to work out what a character with this name might be like....I agreed that they could steal a name idea from me if they wanted to.

Most had already agreed that their first character might not really fit into the woods!..Success!! I had made a different kind of character profile sheet and this worked much better for them so a learn for me re this class.

We started to learn how to use the grid method for multiplication and again, lots of effort and more practice will improve things. We had one of those disjointed reading sessions where everybody seems to knock on your door and need something....and then we had a science afternoon where they planned - in pairs - an investigation into how they could test the strength of various magnets...

Yesterdays ICT session about making a PPT Advent calendar for KS1 went down well. I'd prepared a folder of Xmas like photos, some animated (animated snow was particularly popular..) and targeted a few children to learn a new ppt skill. They really enjoyed being taught, and then being teachers to pass on their new skill of layers within ppt.

Tomorrow is more grid method, plots, circle time and preparing troll info for databases on Friday!

In year 3 at the moment we're doing familiar settings in literacy and I'm using the filmed site above for the first time.

What a wonderful film the Fox and the Child is! For us at the moment it fits with autumn and a familiar setting of the woods - we're also surrounded by them.

The multi-sensory writing they did last week was wonderful, I played the sounds clip from the website and we were off! I played the clip, no writing - all sight barred, ie board off and blackout on the computer screen, we all just listened the first time, then I played it again and they used whiteboards to write down what they thought was happening from what they were hearing. After that they got to watch the clip and were amazed at some things they saw and how they related to what they thought they had heard. They had more input on multi-sensory writing before writing 1/2 paragraphs that described a woodland setting.

This week we've started on characters and I used the film again - what a beautifully expressive face the child has on that film! ....we did much other input on characters - how names have an impact and how stories don't need too much detail about characters, only a couple of special ones. I then went off on my ppa and left them to their character profiles...came back to lots of lovely profiles about their friends or fashion models with make up and boyfriends!...Ho hum, back to the drawing board tomorrow!

Made this today to embed in the Year 3 page of our VLE - the idea being to help both parents and children!

This is something that I am very interested in doing. Quite a while ago as I was just starting out as a teacher, my HT said something that went a bit like this; This is a different generation of children who don't learn in the way that we did.....so...that's kind of my philosophy! Just because the Wii/computer games don't grab me hugely it doesn't mean to say that they don't grab my class or that they could indeed inspire my class! This means I try things and buy things in order to make their learning as 'current' as it can be.

I am into ICT in a big way, but like anything, I'm into some parts of it more than others. Having bought a Wii to use in class after being inspired by you all out there, I find that it's not particularly my thing which is maybe why I am having some reservations about using in class - despite wanting to.

So far the set up I have isn't great, I plug it into the projector and a socket at the back of the class - wires, health and safety etc. With 33 children in my class and a smallish room we are a bit crowded - reservation number 1.

Reservation number 2 - because I have 33 children and 1 Wii, how do I keep them all engaged and doing something whilst a few use it on the IWB? To me the whole idea behind using the Wii is that that's the basis for the activity...maybe a carousel of activities?

My plan is to use African Safari or Endless Ocean to link to the databases unit they are currently doing in ICT...I'm thinking African Safari because they are Y3 and the Latin names of the fish might be a bit tough.

I love the enthusiasm people use when they talk about how they have used a Wii in their class to inspire all kinds of learning, I'd like that!

If you have any ideas/comments about this then I would LOVE to hear them!...Thank you!

This is a link to a forum in which I have already uploaded all the resources - except the music - for this project.

http://primaryresourcecentre.myfreeforum.org/about6808.html

This is the poetry my class wrote for this project.

We wrote 2 poems to music, the 3rd one - it starts 'When I caught my words in the wind' was inspired by writing Pie's poem out on a till roll in 3 different colours, cutting it up and waving it in the wind outside. The children then caught the words as their eyes saw them and then wrote them down on their whiteboards. These 'caught' words then generated new poetry!

Last summer we had a one day Art inspection for Ofsted which co-incided with our local Art festival. I'd already decided to do an art project around this week and so made it a bit more whizzy for Ofsted....like we do!

I based it on the works of Kandinsky as he had a medical condition - synaesthesia - which meant that he saw colours as music and heard music as colours. I also wanted my class to develop their musical listening and understand that music can have layers and textures - just as art can.

Having spent many, many years my life as a professional musician I maybe had a head start on some as to the music I chose in order to help the children be successful in this project. The children had had prior learning on Kandinsky and his abstract shapes, sketching techniques and musical listening.

I started by choosing 2 pieces of music that have 2 parts - each one very different. The first being Spiegel im Spiegel by Arvo Paart (violin + piano) and the second was Pizzica Ucci
by Christina Pluhar (voice & percussion - great video of her and her band with early instruments on utube) from an album called Tarantella.

I was lucky enough to have a professional artist/designer - Amanda McMillan working with me and she came up with the idea of using till rolls to sketch on. In the first session we played the music (it's very peaceful) and modelled what we'd do before asking a couple of children to sketch to this music on the IWB - not great for fine sketching but good enough for them to be able to explain their drawings and how the music had inspired them to draw what they did.

This first session was AMAZING! Amanda and I both had tears in our eyes as we listened to the music and watched a child sketching to it on the IWB. The whole class (Year 3) then sketched on the till rolls with sketching pencils whilst listening to Spiegel im Spiegel.

The feedback was stunning, all children could explain the techniques they'd drawn and how the music had inspired them to draw what they did - 2 parts in the music translated in their art as two contrasting sections. They were given a selection of sketching pencils and some changed them mid way through as this was 'what the music told me to do!'

I then went home all inspired and fired up and emailed the children's author Pie Corbett (I felt very lucky to have a link with him on a couple of previous projects) about the whole thing. He then heard our first piece of music and wondered if I could then get them to write poetry to the same music they had sketched to. So we did! Pie was kind enough to write us a poem to the same music and we used this as a starting point and the poetry they wrote was stunning! ( See google doc of their work when I get around to embedding it!)

We then went on to record each child speaking their poems using an Easispeak microphone. Each child had a choice if they wanted to have background music or not - most did.

We did this project daily and the next piece of music has a wildy different feel. It's a very ancient piece and feels 'mad!' Again we modelled and a couple of children volunteered to sketch on the IWB before the whole class went away to sketch (again using a till roll). The energy the music gave the children was incredible - mad pointillism, the whipping along of the till rolls, the frantic sketching - again all could explain how the music had made them sketch as they did.

We then wrote poetry to this music - 'writing with energy' one child called it.

The next day we sketched to live music - me and their guitar teacher (they had Wider Ops guitar) - one child explained her that her drawing had sections like the music did. She'd recognised that the piece we'd played had 3 contrasting sections.

We gradually brought in the use of colour, taught about blends and tones and how you could 'fuse' colours to make other colours. At this point I started to use the music of Nitin Sawhney as he fuses different musical styles - I used East/West as my theme. I showed videos from utube of him and Anoushka Shankar (sitar) and his band playing at the Electric Proms. There's one incredible bit where he plays exactly the same as she does on the sitar - so we talked about how the guitar and the sitar are a bit similar but from different cultures. Also showed the difference between the tabla and the drums.

We then worked up to the final day - Ofsted! In the final lesson the children were taught how to use watercolour pencils and how to think like artists by using other mediums - toothbrushes, twigs, sponges, bits of pineapple skin (spiky bits) to create shapes and colours in their final work. We had also moved away from till rolls at this point and in the final lesson the children were given a choice of shape and colour of paper.

It was a truly wonderful project that was thoroughly enjoyed by all and before very long I'll upload as many of my resources for this as I can.

This week we were learning about 2D and 3D shapes. Inspired by the maths maps series by Tom Barrett http://edte.ch/blog/ I used the photos part of google maps in one of our ICT lessons.
My class absolutely loved this activity and have seen shapes in everything they have looked at since! Many told me that they went home that evening and showed their parents which is a pretty good indication of how well it went down!

I'm quite excited - despite it being way too early to be on the laptop on a Saturday morning - as I have finally got around to starting a blog!