Loop Cards Become Treasure Hunts

Do you have loop (follow me) cards in your classroom? Do you use them? Do the children sit and respond when they think they have the right answer? What do they do once they have answered?

Hows about all the children taking part all at once?

Make them into a treasure hunt! Print them on large paper and put them up around your classroom, playground or whole school. Give each child or group of children a different starting point and set them off. When they get back to where they started they've finished. 

Got the facility to read QR Codes? You can use them too!

As you can see we've mainly used these in maths. They can be used in many other subjects too. This has been good for identifying misconceptions, group work skills, perseverance levels and checking of incorrect answers. A map of where the questions are is helpful. They can also be differentiated; two different hunts on different coloured paper or a 'longer route' and 'shorter route'.

An example treasure hunt can be found here.

Kung Fu Literacy (Grammar)

Our previous post was titled Kung Fu Literacy (Word Types). This post follows on from that.The idea again is to use Kung Fu style moves to remind children of rules when writing.

Image credit: www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-4366401706

Display a sentence. The everyone reads the sentence aloud. When the following appear in the sentence the following actions are used by all:

Capital Letter - Hands together and bow.

Full Stop - One punch forwards.

Comma - One hand moving in a downwards diagonal direction.

Speech Marks - Both hands held above the head and fingers used in a speech mark style.

Exclamation Mark / Question Mark - One hand make the shape of the upper part and then a punch below.

These are moves we have used. More can be added. Children should be encouraged to think about the moves as they write to remind them of what's required and where.

Kung Fu Literacy (Word Types)

In the past, we've blogged about using kung fu moves in maths. We've also used similar in literacy. We have used it in a couple of different ways. One is to reinforce word types. The idea is to give the children a way of remembering what nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs are. Each word has its own move to remind children of its meaning:

noun - Place two finger on the forehead and then move them away in a an almost saluting way. This is British Sign Language for name.

adjective - Place thumb and forefinger above and below eyes and open eyes wide. Adjectives describe what things are like.

verb - Jogging or walking on the spot. Verbs describe how things move. Do also remind children of the verb to be.

adverb - Arms by your side and then swishing to the left quickly. Adverbs give more description about verbs.

We have used these for:

- a list of words and children show an action when a word is pointed to;

- reading a sentence and children show an action when they say words;

- children have also been see acting out the move to themselves as they work.

If you have any ideas for new moves, changes to moves or activities to use them with please add them to the comments below.

Ringtones Real Life Link

As part of our ICT curriculum, we use GarageBand to create music. Using the application children can import pre-recorded music loops or record their own voice or sound effects. After familiarising themselves with the software, their end of unit outcome is to produce a mobile phone ringtone. Audacity can also be used for the same purpose. GarageBand comes 'free' with a Mac computer and Audacity can be downloaded free for a Windows computer.

Image credit: www.apple.com/uk/mac/garageband
Image credit: audacityteam.org

What to do:

- The children create a piece of music less than 40 seconds long.

- They export it to the computer as a .mp3 file.

- Finally, using Bluetooth they send it to a mobile phone to be used as a ringtone.

The children bring in a mobile phone, often a parent or sibling's old one to send their ringtone to during their lesson. Then we also hold an after school event when children invite their parents in to do the same, but with the child teaching them. 

Some example of our children's work can be found here.

Google Docs - Forms

Google Docs is something we are still experimenting with in our classrooms. However, we have both made a start on using their exceedingly simple 'forms' document to gather data in the classroom. It is useful both for larger data gathering projects and for shorter ones.

In Year Five, the maths class have been given the problem of finding the most common names. This is a great problem as there is a lot of historical data to look back at as well as making use of easily accessible current data by looking at class lists. In order to extend this, we created a simple form on the Google Docs. This asked the year someone was born and what their name is. The link was sent out through our VLE and Twitter accounts to ask people to respond. You will be amazed at how quickly real information comes in. Google Docs then converts that into a handy spreadsheet for you which can be downloaded as an excel document or used collaboratively. Not only is data handling being covered but there is also a real life context to the use of spreadsheets for ICT.

In Year Six, we used the same form creation tool in an OMS. The class were asked what question they would like to ask. We then looked at what information we needed to gather to actually answer that question. The class decided that they wanted to know about favourite supermarkets so we decided we wanted to know about age, whether or not you are in charge of buying the shopping and which was the most common supermarket you used. This led to an excellent discussion about the use of open and closed questions to get responses and how we might find out why someone chose a particular shop. In the lesson, as a class, the form was completed and submitted. By the end of the lesson there were already some responses so the class could see the survey in action.

The surveys are still live so please feel free to join in (Year Five here and Year Six here). Later on in the week we will post about how the data gathering went and what we used it for.

Image credit: Screenshots from Google.com

TeachMeet Cambs

On Monday 15th October 2012, we presented at TeachMeet Cambs (www.3x3links.com/tmcambs).

We presented about:

'Using your smart phone in your classroom' 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NT8JXGsKFJA  

'Ten web tools for the classroom':

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwr7IpCAzO0

Registration Ideas Part II

In our packed timetables it is important to make use of every minute that is available to us. Below are some more ideas that we use to start the day:

Mobile gaming: In our school we have a suite of 15 PSPs with copies of a brain training game. Over the week every child has a go on one of the brain training mini-games. Scores are correlated and over time we can create class scores, compare and, for the really competitive people amongst you, have leagues. Even if you do not have access to this sort of thing through mobile technology, you can make use of online games to achieve the same thing. The important thing is the competition is motivating and children are able to get their brains going before the day.

Sharing poetry: In our class we have a Poem of the Week. At the beginning of the week the poem is introduced and then a range of activities can follow. Pick words from the poem and find synonyms, create similar descriptive passagea, find rhymes and look at the cultural background to the poem. This allows you to share famous, or not so famous poetry that does not necessarily come up in literacy lessons. So far this year we have had poems from Tolkien right through to Maya Angelou.

Art activities: When I have visited museums recently, we have been able to buy black and white versions of famous pictures to be coloured in. We have shared the original art on the board and then invited children to make their own versions. For the more able artist they are able to create their own interpretation, whilst the less able can use the templates purchased at the museum.

Image credit: www.flickr.com/photos/e-strategycom/1054179588

Speeches: A really simple one. Play famous speeches on mp3 in the class then discuss the historical significance of them. For more detail, try analysing the word choices made.