What fun!!! A fantastic site called Switcheroozoo that allows children to create their own animal from a mixture of others. My children just loved the amusing and fantastical morphing of their favourite animals. They have named them amazing names and created a habitat that suits each of their new creations. The complete freedom and random nature of this site is a huge attraction and the giggles continued throughout the session in the ICT suite.
Up in a helicopter, rising above the Serengeti National Park! It’s great to have a completely different perspective of the savannah and its animals. The children are learning about new animals and ask to go and look them up so they know what to look for – the hydrax is a tricky one to find… Note taking skills are being used to great effect so far. We recap at the beginning of the session by looking at the previous assignment and the photographs we took. This ensures that no vital facts are missed. The hope is to complete a fact file on some of the animals and a diary entry of their first day ‘on safari’. Positional and directional language has improved due to the fact that other children are helping those using the controls.
‘This is SO cool…’ was the response of a reluctant writer who grabbed a pen and a dictionary (to find out about the animals) and wrote right to the very end!!
The excitement continued and all the tasks were assigned to the different groups. The sense of urgency was more today because the children realised that they had to get ALL the primary photographs or they would fail the assignment. Today was definitely better regarding the Wii controls, no motion sickness from anyone today!!!! However. there was one bone of contention – the frog! The children spent ages looking for one frog and the compass took them in the direction of the grazing giraffe herd and rhino. Perhaps the funniest part was when they were looking along the ground and water’s edge for the elusive frog when somebody called out to look up and in doing so came face to face with the rhino. We all jumped back together then collapsed into fits of laughter at what we had done. Finally all 30 photographs that were required had been taken and another assignment was completed – phew! Not sure what animals will be in focus tomorrow?? But, I can’t wait…
After a big build up yesterday, today was the launch of our new adventure into the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania via the Wii game Wild Earth African Safari. The children had viewed some YouTube videos yesterday to which they wrote an accompanying persuasive blurb. It was somewhat ironic that as we ventured into the African landscape, it began sleeting outside!! We talked about the landscape and animals that would live there and why which built up nicely to today’s exciting safari. All was going really well but unfortunately one of the children felt sick (and then was promptly sick – not sure if it was the motion sickness from the game or a bug??) Once that was sorted, onwards we went, exploring the landscape and taking notes from the information given on the screen. The children did a valiant job of taking the required photographs in their role of photojournalist/jeep driver. Much excitement was had by way of children calling out instructions, directions and whilst taking notes about the elephants together with operating the controller and num chuck! They have learnt several things from today, to use more subtle movements regarding the controller, teamwork and co-operation and how to jump a mile when faced with a lion!!!!! (It was almost like watching a 3D film as they all jumped backwards….) Assignment 2 awaits us tomorrow where the focussed animals are giraffes. Fingers crossed that there are no more dashes to the sink!!!!
Sorry Stonehenge Class for making you wait such a long time…. At the end of last year, my old class (Year 5 now Year 6) embarked on making some animations to illustrate what was learnt about food chains. I have finally uploaded them to YouTube and here they are:
A new site was tweeted to me, called Primary School Teaching! Resources for ALL key stages especially Foundation Stage!!! Songs, lessons,teaching resources, self registration pictures, IWB activities plus much much more…
These units are from NGfL Cymru which encourages learners to consider light sources and how we see things.
As their site states, this is achieved, ‘Through a range of interactive activities that encourage collaboration and develop thinking, pupils will also consider reflection and how light is refected off certain materials, how shadows are created and uses of light.’
nickynewbury 