Using CODE to make Mothers Day cards

When I got to school today several students asked me if we could make something for Mothers Day.  I decided to try something with a twist.

Some of the class had done coding before and a handful had not.  I paired some of the students up so they could learn off each other and then worked with a small group who had no prior experience.

After I gave a small demonstration on the the projector screen the students were left to make their own  creation.  Will the purpose been - to produce a Mothers Day card using code.  (We were using scratch)

The class did really well and I was really impressed with the ideas they came up with. 

The only problem we found was sharing our codes- there was no email link so we had to cut and paste the link and send in email.  Here are some examples below.

Examples of Mothers Day Cards

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/108444137/

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/108445142/

https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/108444367/

Bubble Fun

I was teaching the Year 1 class for the last two days of term.  I wanted to get stuck in and extend their learning by adding digital skills, while challenging myself and them!

It was great that I had the time to work with this class and I was pleased with the process we took and the end results.  Take a look at the journey we went through and how we got from start to finish.

Bubbles was the theme

We started our day making our own bubble wands and then tested them out with bubble mixture.

We shared our bubble experience and what our bubbles looked like.  We designed our own bubbles on Quiver paper and made them come to life with the quiver app .http://quivervision.com/

We then watched Story on vimeo, and we discussed where we would like to go if we could float away on a bubble.

We wrote our stories and then put them into pic collage with the photos we took of our bubbles and then we added ourselves to make it look like we were floating on the bubble.

This process took some time and skill!! The children did very well carefully cutting around the edge of the photo to crop it.  We had a little help from the Year 5 class as they came and sat so patiently with my kids as they typed in their stories.  They helped them when they got stuck and showed them the extras they could do on pic collage- like adding backgrounds and changing the colours of the text.

Puppet Pals

To extend on my idea again, I wanted to get the students voice into their story.  We used Puppet Pal https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/puppet-pals-hd/id342076546?mt=8

They chose their background, recorded their story and used their image of themselves floating on their bubbles to move across the screen.  They all did this so well for their first time!

Maths stories- Shadow Puppet

Maths stories

This week I have introduced a new app to the students:  Shadow Puppet http://get-puppet.co/ is a great app that uses the skill taking photos with the camera and bringing them to life through the recording of voices.

There are lots of different ways Shadow puppet can be used.  I chose to use it by solving maths problems.  This can be done at a range of levels, adjusting for each abilities.

It was very pleasing to see the teachers using this app the next day, reinforcing their learning or putting their own spin on it to use it for another subject they are learning about.

Below are photos of  students preparing their story.

Credit from TPT(c)2014ThinkAppyThoughts&Tunstall’sTeachingTidbits

Drawing Pad: Reading Response

Reading Response:  Prediction                       It could have been worse  By A.H Benjamin        

Another day teaching Room 8 gave me a chance to use the Drawing Pad app again.  They did such a great job with their book covers about Edwin the Otter (see previous post) that I knew they would be very capable to do something else.

I began by showing the children the front cover of the book, from here they wrote in their books what they thought the book was going to be about. 



 We began to read the story and I stopped on the page where there was a fox.  They were then left to discuss what they thought would happen next.

They all wrote a sentence and then using drawing pad illustrated their own page for the book.

It was definitely a challenge for everyone, especially trying to draw a fox!  I was very impressed with the ability of the children and the final outcomes were very good.

We are still working on fine tuning the final products to make sure the overall display has the best layout but this is all learning and the more they do the better they results they will get.

Check out the awesome work below:
Using Drawing pad:  Students drew their pictures, added backgrounds and clip art.  Added text to write a sentence for the page to match their illustration.  This was done in one block (1 1/2 hours)

Reinforcing Learning

iPad in the classroom

Well I'm back after 6 weeks away on holiday in London!
 It was so great to come back and walk into a classroom of Year 2/3s to find them working away independently on their iPads.  The thing I love about this class is that after I have taught them a skill or new app on the iPad they continue to practice it on their own or with their teacher to reinforce what they have learnt or extend their learning by putting their own spin on it.  I can definitely see a difference when I work in all the classes throughout the school: like anything, when a student has been exposed to something, then has had extra time spent on it - the results are very telling.   I am blown away by the skill and ability of these young students and it is great when I get to spend a whole day with them instead of my normal 1 1/2 hour block.

Here are some photos of the students, voluntary working on the iPad before school.  You can see they are using the following apps:
1.  Puppet Pals
2.  Drawing Pad
3.  Chatterpix

Book-creator and Drawing Pad

YAY- so happy today, I get to have a whole day to teach Room 8, so of course I will be teaching them some new techniques to use on the ipad!
I saw a really cool idea on scoop it - which I need to locate to give credit to.
I took the idea and changed it to suit my Year 2 class.

Aim:  Students will respond to a book they read

Outline:

• I shared the title with the students and got them to share everything they new about otters.  (was great to have a totally random topic with little background knowledge)  through images I showed them we came up with a great list of ideas.
• They then did this task at their desks with a partner, including some drawings on paper
• Next step was for them to create a new book cover for the story- they needed to draw an otter in Drawing pad
• They then uploaded their picture into Book creator- and included a title and their name
• We then predicted what the story was going to be about- again  lots of discussion and sharing the students they then went and recorded their voices on book creator on the next page.
• The class loved reading the story- it is very interactive with videos and photos to watch on the way as well as enjoying the cleverly written rhyming story.

• If I had more time I would of loved to continue to add more pages and complete more responses to the story.  I think they did great considering the time frame and especially since it was their first time using both the apps.  Most students completed 3 reading responses, these included, Patterns in the text, Their favourite part, Something they learnt 

Book creator