Scratch

Recently I came across Scratch, one of the ICT teachers at the local Grammar school mentioned it as a great way to get children interested in programming and I have seen many posts on Twitter about it.

It is fantastic. Scratch is a programming language that makes it easy to create your own interactive stories, animations, games, music, and art and share your creations on the web through their website. The program is free to download. My ICT technician was able to install it on to our network as there is a great support section.

Currently the Year 6 teachers are using Scratch and the children love it. Following on from the Lego League club that we had for the tournament, the children who did the programming still meet and are working with children from one of the local Grammar schools to improve their programming skills.

I am looking forward to using it with my Year 5′s and will draw on the expertise from the Year 6′s who have even downloaded it to use at home!

Scratch

Birdwatch 2010

As part of my role as a Leading ICT teacher, I have become involved in the countywide Birdwatch project.

Check out the microsite

Many schools have installed bird boxes with live webcams. Just fingers crossed that we get some activity.

In conjunction with the project, we have been holding international video conferences using flashmeeting. This has been fantastic for the children and has enhanced their learning.

Each month, schools carry out a birdwatch survey for an hour and results are collated in a spreadsheet and linked to a Google map.

Activities have been planned for each term. For example Term 5 and 6, data handling resources linked to the new framework have been provided for each school. Also a photography competition is running for KS1 and KS2.

Thinking Skills

Last year I was lucky enough to visit Toronto, Canada as part of the TIPD programme. The focus of our visit was Thinking Skills. While there, I saw a lot of strategies that my school already use and some others that would encourage the children to think more in depth about their learning and its impact.

On returning from Canada, I attended several sessions with the focus of Building Learning Power at a local Grammar School. It was interesting to share good practice during the workshop sessions. (Guy Claxton).

Various tasks were set to integrate Building Learning Power/Thinking Skills in to my planning and teaching. It was quite surprising how quickly the children embraced the four R’s and were able to identify when one of their class members had demonstrated one of them. In my classroom, I have a board that shows the the four R’s and what qualities relate to it. Accompanying this, there are individual pictures of each child. These can be struck next to the demonstrated quality. I feel this empowers the children and encourages them to value each other.

The plan for this academic year is that the whole school will learn how to integrate Building Learning Power in to their classrooms.

It’s the new academic year, so will be introducing the four R’s gradually to my class. I have simplified the qualities in to language that all the children can understand. I constantly talk about their potential learning power and that this can be built upon. The first of the four R’s I will concentrate on is Resilience. The concept of locking on to learning which children do have difficulty with.

· Perseverance: sticking with difficulty
· Absorption: becoming engrossed in learning
· Noticing: looking for patterns and clues
· Managing distractions: strengthening concentration

Lego

I can’t believe how excited the children get at the mention of Lego. My school has golden time on Friday afternoons, where the children get to pick activities to do such as using the laptops, building with Knex, playing boardgames, drawing and playing scrabble. So many children go for the option of building with Lego. They love sharing their new creations and feel deflated if asked to break them up ready for next time.

On their class page in our learning portal, the children tend to click on the links to reasonably clever kid safe website. They have the opportunity to create their own lego characters which they can save as jpg.

This part of the official Lego site is where the children can download a designer in order to design their own lego.

Due to the children’s enthusiasm for Lego, I am going to integrate its use into my teaching. We are currently studying one of the film versions of Treasure Island. One of the activities I have planned for the children is for the small groups to plan a scene from the film to re-enact with the Lego and take pictures in order to create an animation using Powerpoint. Captions and Speech will be added to enhance the animation.

Thinkquest

Saw the thinkquest competitions advertised on Kent NGfL blog and had a good look at the website. Seemed like a fantastic way to get small groups of children to collaborate on a project using the rich content tools. Applied a couple of weeks ago to enter and received confirmation this week. After selecting groups of children from Year 5 and 6 then explaining the process. I found that I had 22 children eager to take part. What to do??

To ensure I did disappoint anyone, I have set up 5 groups who have picked a question they will tackle as a group over the next four weeks. I was pleasantly surprised how enthusiastic the children were about collaborating on this project. Although it is for a competition, they seem more excited about producing work that will make people more aware of their chosen topic focus.

It reminds me why I am a teacher.

Once the children have completed their competition entries, I may look at ways I can use thinkquest in my teaching.

Superclubsplus

I must say that superclubsplus has been a great way to teach e-safety. We have a school licence and children from year 3-6 use it on a regular basis.

The children learn about e-safety and earn badges when they complete various tasks. They have their own webpages within Superclubs in order to learn about publishing information. The children enjoy earning their stars and other awards and learn about the need to keep particular information safe.

Each child has their own email account and all emails are moderated. Some children have learned the hard way that they need to think about what they say to each other and what may be considered inappropriate.

The school licence is quite reasonable, it enrolls all children from Year 2- Year 6.

Towards the end of Year 6, the children have access to the Goldstar cafe which is the secondary equivalent to Superclubsplus.

Design and Technology-Bread

Below are  a few useful sites for the Year 5 Bread topic:

http://www.warburtons.co.uk/

http://www.kingsmillbread.com/#/home/

http://www.morrisqualitybakers.co.uk/breaducation/historyofbread.asp

http://cookit.e2bn.org/index.php

Myths and Legends E2BN

http://myths.e2bn.org/

Another cracking resource, which gives the children an opportunity to publish their own work.   Gave the children the website the friday before half term and was inundated with myths and legends to approve.

Red Nose Day

Are you doing anything to raise money for Red Nose Day this year?

On the 13th March, we have a non-uniform day planned where the children dress in red. We are possibly doing a dance performance on the playground as most of the classes have been taught the same dance routine.  Could be amazing to see and be part of if we can get it off the ground.

Holidays

As you know, us teachers value our holidays and ensure we make most of the time which isn’t taken up by planning, preparation and marking.

Last year, I took my summer holiday in Las Vegas. What an amazing place.  Hotels tower over each other, each one presenting a more impressive exterior and interior as you move down the strip. Although it was 40 degrees most days, the heat was bearable.  I love it so much, I will be returning during summer half term.