Bits & Bobs

I had this idea today and with the consent of Tom Barrett have hijacked his 'Interesting Ways' idea...

My idea is to share any interesting projects that you have taught within a topic that have both inspired you and your children along the journey of learning!

This presentation can also be found on Mark Warners site - Ideas to Inspire.

I've started off with an interesting mini-project I used within my teaching of the WW2 topic in Year 3 last year.

When you have thoughts you just have to go with them....even if it is Christmas Eve and the world is full of snow! For some reason I woke up thinking about using games to help develop the 'out of the box' kind of thinking that can be necessary when solving problems in all sorts of subjects. I am thinking specifically of maths here but this kind of thinking can help in many other situations - from what to use to paint with in art to get a special effect when faced with the stituation that you can't use a paint brush (much more fun using bits of twig, fruit peel, bits of plastic flowers, moss, stones etc...) to planning investigations in science.

A couple of years ago I was teaching part time in Y5 & Y6 and read somewhere about a teacher using the Dyson Game to help develop this 'out of the box' thinking to help with problem solving. It's a fun game which quickly gets more difficult and hence thinking. The basic idea is that you use the telescope to either push or suck the ball into a hole. You need to develop a strategy pretty quickly otherwise you just push and pull aimlessly in the hope that somehow you'll hit upon the correct moves to get the ball into the hole. The one that works for me is to work out which telescope ( you end up with a lot of them on your screen....) MUST be the one to push the ball into the hole...ie start at the end and work backwards....a bit like sometimes in maths!

To start with the class wondered why they were being given 'a game' (which they all loved) to play as part of their ICT time, we then chatted about it and worked out how we could use it to help us in maths. I think that it certainly helped the children who read a problem and find it difficult to know what to do or how to even start to work out the answer. The class had maybe 10-15 mins of one of their ICT sessions each work for a number of weeks (as well as at home if they wanted to) & their confidence increased by understanding that problem solving is about 'how to think' before actually doing the maths, that the problem always gives you a clue and trying to apply what they'd learnt using the Dyson Game - thinking around the problem of trying to get the ball in the hole.

OK, it's taken me a while but finally I have decided what to do....

I shall create a class blog for Y3 in which they will be the authors. To start with I am going to restrict access to Y3 and their parents. I would really love it to be their blog and not mine - ie posting about what they have done.

So, I am going to create one, ask permission from parents and explain why I would love to do this and that I think it'll work brilliantly if we all buy into it - ie WW2, online 'diary' versus WW2 one sort of thing. WW2 is our massive topic for all of the Spring term.

I then plan on adding all the children as authors using their VLE email addresses and hopefully all parents too, I reckon the blog will work best if both parents and children buy into it.

Every week/day?...not sure but will find out as life goes on!...I plan on having the children write a blog about what they have learnt about WW2 and how they feel about what they have learnt.

When we learn about evacuees I'd like them to become evacuees as they blog about their journey, new life, feelings etc

When we start to write diaries when we learn about Anne Frank I'd like to start a 'fictional diary' about what children in Y3 might have done that day if they had been in her position.

I hope that this will really make them think about what it must have been like for children in WW2 and for Anne Frank...

More about this exciting plan - at least to me! - as it progresses...

A few weeks ago the Y3 homework 'Website of the Week' was http://www.elastoplaststories.co.uk/ . This is a website that is both great fun and extremely inventive with the use of plasters! There's also a teachers activity pack and a creative kids pack that you can download for free. One of the children in my class entered the story competition and we found out yesterday that she is one of the 3 winners! Woohoo - well done her! Her prize is a creative writing workshop for our class by the author Paul Geraghty . Her story is called 'The Sad Spider' if fancy searching for it and reading!

You create your Elastoplast story using many different plasters, you have a choice of 'moving' plasters or not and you can even add your voice!
You start with a blank storyboard and are given tools to work with - Creatures, People, Plasters and Backgrounds. You can also add description as you go through your story! I think it's a great website with much potential for use in a primary school!



If you're anything like us, we do half termly writing assesments which are then levelled and new individual writing targets are set. We did ours yesterday - great theme to do with Christmas from our Literacy co-ordinator - we're not allowed to give input as such but can talk about targets etc before giving the writing prompt. I always give the children their literacy books and get them to look at how much they have improved since they started Y3 - I LOVE to watch them do this because of how excited they become when they realise that they are better writers than in Sept - some huge gains in handwriting etc....and I pick a few children to show off their work to the whole class using the visualiser....very motivational and creates a lovely atmosphere for the writing assessment.

I always think that Instructions are a great text type to use around Christmas - fairly straightforward to understand and doesn't require a huge amount of writing - perfect when children are a bit weary after working hard all term!

Earlier this week we'd analysed lots of different instructions to get the hang of what they need to have and why we have them in the first place. We then put some mixed up instructions in order - of how to make a paper snowflake - before writing the whole thing up and then making the snowflake from their own instructions! Went well but a bit laboured so I decided to inject a bit of fun into the proceedings...

Today they used their instructions planning sheet to plan instructions on how to explain to a blue alien how to shake somebody's hand....boy...great fun! I made a bit of a whizzy fun PPT ( don't groan...I am inventive with ppt!) with flying ski-ing santa's, huge snowmen and chattering blue aliens which went down very well!

Great lesson because they realised how clear they had to be with something that seemed SO simple.. We talked about how blue aliens might not know that you need to specify which hand and indeed that you have to have a hand to shake - the blue alien may well have come from a planet that had aliens without hands...

The challenge - with prizes for successful instructions - was to then read out the instructions to 2 blue aliens - ie other members of Y3 who had to do exactly what was asked!

Missing instructions about actually holding hands, using the right or opposite hands created a lot of mirth when the 2 blue aliens just moved hands up and down in thin air with nothing to hold onto! Some children thought about what to say and asking permission to grab hands which was very gorgeous...if you fancy having a go and would like my whizzy ppt then please ask!

Here are a few of the Ript collages that they made today. They decided that they would share the 2Paints that they had made so that everyone had more than one image to use. We also agreed that it was a big compliment that other people might want to use what they had created!

I then printed them off and they used them this afternoon as part of their Christmas cards which were also decorated with colourful sparkly things!

So, my first teachmeet that I plan on going to and I would like to do a completely non-techie thing of just talking about what I'm good at and how it's gone down and the results achieved etc....no presentation at all...

OOH!..bucking the trend of doing whizzy techie things - which I also love - and can I do it?!

For me it seems that teachmeets are all about what whizzy things people do with ICT, I do just fine with that but I feel that the thing I am good at is creative ideas, which isn't necessarily ( I always say, Never Eat Cake Eat Salmon Sandwiches and remain 'ily) what people might want to hear...so...what do you think?

Are you up for non-techiness?...or not?

Two weeks to go before school stops for 2 weeks.! Time to get your classroom buzzing with the excitement of Christmas...

If you haven't already got going with an online advent calendar then we're using this as our online calendar because the wonderful santa.gl polar bear one seems to have died this year.. :-(

We've also got a massive Father Christmas advent calendar hanging on the door with a chocolate for each child. We're using the Hat software to pick someone every day... if you download it then just be aware that you might want to stop the flashing and the shaking - I find I am uncomfortable when it's doing that!


Literacy in the last 2 weeks is going to be instructions, I plan on photocopying various Xmas 'things to make' for them to analyse, do lots of prep on what instructions need etc and then I think I will link lit to maths and use Bev Evans wonderful shape challenge . We'll do the challenge and then write instructions on how to successfully meet this challenge for another class to follow.

I'm thinking that I will use our ICT time to create Xmas cards - firstly by using 2 paint to create an Xmas like picture which will then be saved and dragged to Ript ( still got to check that it's possible to do that...), printed off and stuck onto a peice of card and duly decorated with tinsel and written on.

I also found many ideas here - discovered by a colleague - and here .

I'm planning on doing Christmas sandwiches - What kind of sandwich would Father Christmas
like to eat on Christmas Eve?...links to our current D&T and I am also going to show the old Walt Disney Christmas videos (downloaded from utube) - they are wonderful!

Also from utube is a video of the 'Little Matchstick Girl' for some Christmas PHSCE...

We have our class party - might do karaoke - plus umpteen other Christmassy things that I haven't yet thought about....What do you do?!

Then there is the wonderful animoto site for all manner of Xmassy things which will be wonderful!

Music that comes to mind for a Christmas animoto is...

• Lieutenant Kije Troika
• Nutcracker Suite
• Any Xmas carol
• Kate Rusby - Sweet Bells, carols with a difference
• Bach - Christmas oratorio..

And try this - from Porchester

Wow! What gorgeous children I am lucky enough to teach! They tried their socks off today and achieved masses so well done them!

Today was the end of our African Safari Wii project, we had our special visitor - Dughall - in class to help us through the day. Both of us were interested to use the Wii to aid learning after reading about so many teachers achieving great results through it's use as a teaching tool. If you've read my previous bloggings you'll know what we've been doing....if you haven't I reckon it's worth a read if you are at all interested in using a Wii as a teaching tool!

We started the day with the usual class things, letters brought back, homework books etc etc, Advent Calendar (using the Hat software to pick a name) and our online Advent Calendar about Zac the elf. Dughall then introduced himself etc and then we launched into our special day!

I'd split the class into 6 groups of 5, each child had a job within that group. We've had massive learning this week about what good teamwork looks like and Dughall - as he'd never met a lot of the children before - was to be in charge of the Wii and judging teamwork.

We were lucky enough to have 2 rooms to use - Y3 classroom + ICT suite. This meant that each group had about 20 mins 'uninterrupted' time on the Wii. Everyone else was working hard in the ICT suite. They used Word to type up a previously written animal report in literacy before creating a 'photo - journalist' like report using Ript. Everyone did a good job and the finished Ripts look amazing! They will all be printed off and made into a book that will be displayed in our classroom. I also plan to do a google docs of them so that they can share what they have achieved with their parents via our VLE.

Dughall was thrilled by how well the teams worked together....me too! They have come such a long way in a week and this game has proved to be a wonderful way of teaching the life skill of how to work well in a team... One of the best examples of what has been achieved was that one team applauded each others efforts and made wonderfully positive comments!...Wow!

My evaluation of my first time of using the Wii as a teaching tool would be this....

• Brilliant for PHSCE - great 'current' medium to teach life skills
• Great cross-curricular tool, once you get your mind working about the fact that it's a teaching tool rather than a game, more and more things crop up..art, maths, PHSCE, ICT, geography, literacy, science, could have done music but ran out of time...etc etc
• Allow MUCH more time for children to get used to the game than you think - I had lunchtime & playtime sessions + one whole class session
• I liked that it was a special project, having 1 week in which everything was achieved worked well because the focus was constant
• Use real life alongside the Wii - lots of great utube videos to help the children understand that in this region the animal is the MOST IMPORTANT thing...
• The 'wow' factor it gives is immense...the children love it, it's current, they have them at home etc etc

If you're a bit doubtful, get in touch, I definitely think it is worth using a Wii as a teaching tool!...Just got to decide which Wii game to use next...kind of fancy the 'Goo' one for science but I need more info as to what it's about... :-)

A blog free day yesterday...goodness me! Entirely due to a horrible cold inhabiting my head and giving me a nose that's redder than Rudolphs...One child suggested they did a tally of how many times I needed to blow my nose...

I used Furbles yesterday in our ICT suite with great success! It's a very clever piece of software that really tests if a child understands data handling or not...


It allows you to set tally charts, bar charts, Carroll diagrams, pie charts, Venn diagrams to two levels. I haven't quite sorted it all out yet but it looks as though you can input childrens names and so have a record of what they do - we did the 'Free play - explore' yesterday. Children can also be set up in an account.


For each type of data handling there are 3 options that test in different ways.

• In 'Which' mode the Furbles test if a child can select the correct chart for the Furbles they have.
• In 'Match' mode, the Furbles test is a child can match the Furbles to the chart - they do have to work it out and change a Furble if necessary.
• In 'Change' mode the Furbles ask the child to change the tally so it's the same as the Furbles they have.

Each way is a bit different and challenges the child to really think about data handling. I think it's very clever and my class loved it! They especially love the way the eyes watch you as you watch them and the way they chatter as they fly to the chart when a child has made a correct selection!

I find it very easy to use both in a lesson on the IWB and for one to one in the ICT suite..great!

On to Wii things...We've now had a few lunchtime and playtime sessions in groups and good discussions about how to achieve good teamwork so that the group can meet as many of the Wii objectives as possible. We've also discussed why we're using the Wii and 'real life' videos of the Serengeti ( from utube) and which they prefer. This was very interesting! Everyone loves the Wii but not all had thought about the fact that real life is simulated in it. The discussion carried on and one point raised was that the Wii game allowed them to search and explore the landscape in a way that isn't possible on a utube video. They like having the time to look around, look at the Wii landscape and search for things and in things (ants in the termite mound for example..). They also really like to see real life, the real animals in the real surroundings.

This want to see the real as well as the simulated make me really think about me and the Wii. I can really see how the Wii inspires the children - all fully engaged when we have a session. I think my problem is that I do prefer real life - I am not really a gamer - so when I teach with the Wii, as I will continue to do, I will teach the real alongside the simulated if I can.... Eg Endless Ocean - I have the game, I love the sea and all that encompasses but I will also use the real...Blue Planet being one example that springs to mind...and not at all because in my previous life I did the 'live Blue Planet' show which is AWESOME!

So, tomorrow is the last prep day before our big day! We have the ICT suite all morning so the Wii will be in the Y3 classroom along with me or Dughall + TA, the class will take it in turns and have about 25 mins each using the Wii to achieve as many of its objectives as they can. There will be rewards for excellent teamwork! In the ICT suite they will be typing up their animal reports using Word or PPT, finding photos from switch zoo and finally creating their final 'ript' report.

I plan on having a 'show and tell' of experiences in the afternoon as well as the rewards for good teamwork!...Roll on Friday :-)