Curating articles through Pinterest

If ,like us, you access a lot of different articles online, it can be a challenge keeping track of everything you wish to read. One technique we have started to use is curating the articles using a Pinterest account and a Pinterest button extension in our browser.
Beyond the different blogs we follow (which is upwards of 100 now - you amazing, interesting writers, you), there are emails sent daily with articles (a great one is diigo which often has contributions from the brilliant ICTMagic) and of course things which ping our way as we float around Twitter (@primaryideas).
It is often too difficult to read all of these ideas during the school day as we juggle planning, marking and having fun, and by the end of the day, we would end up with a load of memory chugging tabs open in our browsers.
To deal with this, we installed the Pinterest save button. Now, when we open a page that interests us, all we do is click the button, choose an image and save it in the relevant folder.
When it comes time to read, you can read it online or on any of the mobile devices which have Pinterest apps. Finding the time is still an issue, but at least now there is flexibility in it.
We are sure that there are loads of other ways of doing this, but this is one which works for us.

Minecraft and Grammar

We love to play Minecraft, kids love to play Minecraft (many, not all). Therefore, when possible, and without over-doing it, we use the game to provide a context to some of our lessons.
Recently, we have been giving our children some work on the different elements of sentences and have been focussing on the difference between verbs, subjects and objects. This is important knowledge for helping them to understand how their own sentences are structured as well as for when we work on the differences between the active and passive voice.
To help the children understand the difference we put on a quick game of Minecraft and started mining.

 The children were able to understand the difference between the subject (Steve) and the object (the blocks being mined) as well as the verb.
To reinforce this, we were able to change the 'skin' of the character as well as the view of the camera. This meant that the children could see the subject from different viewpoints (changing the skin changes the look of the main character). By changing the equipment that the character was carrying we were able to change the verb as well.

Just writing this has given me the idea to look at using Minecraft to reinforce writing in the first and third person. Look back soon for how that goes...

World War II Letters

Our next topic is to focus on a period of historical significance and we are looking at the events in and around Dunkirk during World War II. As well as being inspiring and well resourced, one of the reasons it is so interesting is that it is easier for the children to relate to the people who lived through this period of such importance. Our last history topic was the Mayas and, whilst fascinating because it was something the children knew nothing about, it was hard for children to relate to a life experience that was so far removed from their own.

In order to help our children understand the significance and participation of real people in World War II we have made use of actual letters from participants in in the war. This Canadian letters and images website (www.canadianletters.ca) is an excellent and moving source of information including letters, photos and other documents about real people who took part in the war and is the source of all the resources we have used in our display.

Initially we chose two main people to base our work and display on. Daniel Serrick and Ernest Underwood. Both of these people were Canadians who fought in the war and the letters they wrote or are about them reflect two horrible experiences including Daniel who, unfortunately, did not survive
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The display we designed was inspired by a recent visit to the stunning Imperial War Museum North, whose exhibits are all built around the personal experiences of people from conflicts throughout the recent past. Every half an hour or so they also project onto their enormous backdrops a multi-media presentation using memories and pictures. We strongly recommend that if you are in Manchester you pay a visit to this engaging museum.

Our display, to begin with, is based on sharing personal stories of people from the war. We chose a couple of letters from the individuals we had picked to reflect some of the life experiences they were having during the war or from people around them as they process what had happened to them. This allows the children to understand the impact on friends and families as well as the individuals involved. Linked to this, we also chose a photo of them so that children could see that these were real people.

The children were interested to read about them and, even though it is still challenging, were better able to understand some aspects of their lives especially when they talk about the day-to-day aspects of their lives.

A Powerpoint containing the resources for the display can be found in our Dropbox folder here. 

The next step, again inspired by the visit to the museum, is to add an audio-visual element to the display perhaps using some the augmented reality tools that are available.