A Wonderfully Techy Term!

I feel so spoilt to have had such an exciting first term!

Do you remember this post about World Maths / Spelling and Science Day? Well, we took part and it was fantastic.  The Science Day didn't work too well as the site took very long to load, but the fun that we had on the other two days made up for it!

Then, this post about the Cultural Exchange Project was written when it was merely a plan within a plan. We are now well into it and its been going so well. We are looking forward to continuing with it after the holidays!  Today, we loaded the story of "What we did on the weekend" into Little Bird Tales! What excitement - so much of chattering. One very busy Grade 4 class - but they were stars!!!

Reading the points our Partner School posted
about themselves to us.

Then we had a nice surprise email from an International School in Switzerland to ask if our Grade 2's wanted to Skype Video Chat with them. Of course we thought that it was an amazing idea and said "Of Couse!"  They were studying Seasons and we had a list of questions from them to research. They asked us these questions and our children each had 2 turns to answer them.  The Grade 2's were very confident and we were very proud of them.  I learnt a couple of things about Skype video chatting though, more about the set-up and where to place the camera/screen. It was a learning experience for me and I loved it. I can't wait to connect with other classes around the world. 

Waving Goodbye after our Chat!

I am thinking that our Grade 7's study Natural Distasters in the 3rd or 4th term and maybe trying to connect them with classes in areas that have tornados or hurricanes or earthquakes. It would be interesting for them to create a list of questions to ask them.  Anyway - watch this space for that!

What a wonderful term!

Fabulous Timelines

The Grade 8's are going to be busy with the Industrial Revolution from next term. I love history and so have had great fun using Dipity Timeline as an example of what they will be creating in it. If you view this in Dipity, you will see that one can use videos, photo's, music and sites to enahnace your Timeline.

The Industrial Revolution - Grade 8 on Dipity.

I have loved using it, although on the odd occassion various dates seem to default back to 1969! Not sure what that's about, but after some perseverence, I hope I have it sorted out.

I am looking forward to teaching it to them - and seeing the results of their work!

Cultural Exchange Project

We are back at school and the year has began in earnest. The new Grade 1's have completed their first week, the new students feel at home and the Staff are back in the swing of things.

I have prepared an open-ended project with a school in the UAE in which our Grade 4's and their Year 4's will be sharing information about their Country and their Culture.  We will be making movies, sharing our findings with avatars, writing stories, turning journals into Little Bird Tales and hoping to Skype one another to learn some words in one anothers languages. 

We will be looking at things like:

• My Class and My School
• My Pet(s)
• My Weekend
• My City, My Country
• Tell me about...
• My Culture
• A Story for You
• Wrap Up

We will be using a wiki to upload our clips, photo's, stories and discussions. It's only starting this week but I am looking forward to a wonderfully enlightening project. I will track the project and ideas / what works / doesn't work here - in case you want to try something similar.

It's early days, and the Project being particularly organic, may take shape differently to how I envisage - but there is atleast a plan in place to begin.

So, let's begin, shall we!?

World Maths Day

World Maths Day is coming up on 7 March 2012.  Have you considered participating?

As a school we have taken part and it was a great experience for everyone. Its really simple. All you need to do is get permission from parents, register the children, and then follow the instructions that are very clearly laid out on their website.

It looks from the Pre-registration that one now signs up for World Spelling/ Maths /Science Day.  Even better!

I registered the children who wanted to take part, and then each day from the time that "practice" begins, they can come in and get used to how the whole event works. I do this so that it is not a surprise when they get to the timed event - they are confident and ready for action!  What I also enjoy about this, is that they can log on at home and continue to practice or compete after school in their own time.

The best was listening to their excited shrieks of "I'm playing against Japan!" or "I am playing against India!" or "I am playing against someone in Australia!"  Suddenly the world was bigger than our ICT Lab and we embraced every moment of it!  We got a report back on how each child did and how we achieved as a school.

I am really looking forward to registering our learners for these events again this year. Why don't you?

Wishing all a wonderfully educational 2012!

Fun with Image Chef

I introduced the Grade 4's to Image Chef today.

A fun site is where one can create, and publish to blogs or other social networking sites.

Today they had to come with a poem, their own or another, and use the 'Visual Poetry' link on Image Chef. 

When their poem was done, they just wanted to test all the other fun activities on the site!

Here are some of the FUN THINGS they created!

 

 

 

Looking forward to finding new ways to use this site! 

World Adventure

The Grade 1's have spent the last 6 weeks learning about different parts of the world.

Their teacher has focussed on culture, attractions and food that they eat. It's been a lot of fun watching the little ones arrive on a Friday, with their suitcase of clothing suitable for the climate they are travelling to. Hearing their shrieks as they 'take off' in the aeroplane. You guessed it, their seats are in airline style!

I pop in now and again to photograph the excitement and am often greeted with the lovely sight of food being prepared in the classroom, like pizza for Italy, and most recently, the frying of hamburger patties for USA.

These are the things that memories are made of!

They are following this up in ICT, sourcing Clipart pics of the world, learning to use WordArt for the names of the countries they visit, find the flag and identify sights and food from these nations.

This map I made for them as a visual illustration to show them the distance they have 'travelled' in the last while. It's done on Tripline, which is a wonderful interactive mapping site and very easy to use.

It would be a great tool for older students to use themselves.

Grade 1 World Adventure on Tripline

Grade 7 Voki's

This week, I decided it would be a fun thing for the Grade 7's to make their own avatar using http://www.voki.com/.

Since they are the first Grade 7's going through the school I thought it would be fun for them to create an avatar with a message to the Grade 1-6's giving them some advice or a parting message.  I decided not to tell them how to use the site in the traditional manner, but instead, using Jing, I created a screencast of the instructions which they viewed and followed.

It worked like a bomb - and I think I shall teach them how to use Jing next!

Here is an example of one of their final products:

It was great watching them work it out, discover different images and voices, and enjoying the activity. I was thrilled with the outcome of their Voki's and already have ideas where I can use this with other classes.