Beach Ball Throw - Taskmaster

For the past four years, we've used the 'Backwards Video Task' as a team building task at the start of each year. It gets children working together and produces some imaginative and impressive outcomes. 

In the most recent series of Taskmaster, the contestants were given another video task I can see working well in the classroom. The contestants were given a beach ball and asked to film themselves in one location throwing the ball out of shot and then later film them self catching the ball in a new location. The winner of the task was the person who 'threw' the ball over the largest total distance. In school, I'd be looking for the group to ensure consistency by linking the throws and filming to make each throw and catch look authentic. 

Going to give it a go in September. We'll see what the children come up with! There's a planning sheet here that may be useful.

Slow / Fast Motion Video Task

Again some inspiration from the TV series Taskmaster. We've had success in the past with the 'Backwards Video Task'. In the most recent series, the contestants were asked to film something that when sped up or slowed down made it more interesting or amusing.

Again like before, use it as a group work and/or ICT task. Both iMovie and Movie Maker allow speeding up or slowing down a clip and apps can be purchased to do the same too.

The Backwards Video Task

Last year, we wrote about 'Television - Beaming Ideas into your Livingroom!' We'll, the TV watching has come up trumps once again... 

While watching Taskmaster on Dave, I saw the following task being carried out by the contestants (audio not appropriate for a primary school classroom):

The concept is brilliant. Film something, that is impressive when watched in reverse. Below is the video we came up with...

As part of our start of year; group work, English teaching and getting to know equipment activities we gave the children in Year Five this same task. They worked in groups, thought about and planned their video before then going through the technological steps to complete the task.

An example of the planning sheet is below and some of the finished examples can be viewed here.

 

For our implementation of it, we used iPad devices to film, iMovie app to edit and Reverser - Backwards Video Maker with Reverse Cam app to reverse the video. If we find other ways of reversing videos, we'll update this post.

@PrimaryIdeas that's brilliant! Really glad to have helped in some way...

— Alex Horne (@AlexHorne) September 7, 2015

Team Lego

At the start of the year, it is all about getting to know your new class. The children go through initial assessments in reading, writing, maths, art and all the other subjects. We also want our children to leave school at the end of the day having had fun. This year we looked at how we could add a bit of fun to some of our assessments,

A key area of development for us is developing teamwork skills, as well as independence and initiative. In the past, whilst we were teaching the skills of how to work in the team, we offered theoretical problems as well as classics such as building bridges with newspaper. So, this year, we looked at spicing them up.

Lego. I love Lego. The kids love Lego. It is easy to put together and easy to pick up. And, of course, I love Lego. After a visit to the Manchester Lego Discovery Centre, where my family and I played with the Duplo tower activity, my colleagues and I set up problem number one. How high can you build a Lego tower? The joy of this activity is that you can clearly highlight a design and evaluation stage.

Problem number two was slightly more complicated. As part of our curriculum we film a Shakespeare play, so I wanted to assess how well children were able to orient themselves around a camera shot and storyboard. In order to do this, I set up the challenge of making a film, with sound, using two Lego figures (from the Lego Minifigures range) and two sheets of paper as well as anything they had in their pencil case. The children had two hours to complete this. To add an extra challenge, I gave the children specific film genres to work with, from Romance to Science Fiction.

By the end of the morning, all the children had completed their films. We had the scary 'Demon Skateboard' as well as a beautiful romance between Disco Girl and the Chef. Most importantly, I could see how well the groups worked together, as well as their proficiency with the software and the cameras.

Image credit: http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/logo/lego-0

Now I can move forward with the shot types I want to teach, the software we need to work on and the team skills I need to focus on. I also got to play with Lego.