iPad Animation

I was fortunate enough to go to an iPad animation course. The course focused on using garage band to create the music and voice parts, stop motion by bitmoix and iMovie to edit the final piece.

We started by creating our dialogue using garage band. This was basically 7 sentences.

1. Introduced the setting
2. States a problem
3. States a way to fix the problem
4. Identifies that the problem is bigger then thought
5. States what 
6. 
   
7. How the story ends

Once we had created the dialogue we then added sounds and music to it. Once this was completed the saved final noise piece to the stop motion app.

We then build our sets and began recording.

We could use either Lego or paper for our animation

Craig show us how easy it is to animate paper cute outs

Looks like a person

Building our set from Lego

Other group used paper

Their finished set

Extra props to animate

Two Characters (girl)

Boy character

Manipulating the set, so the paper "animates"

This was the set up that Marnee and I used to hold the iPad still during our Lego animation.

 My take homes from this was it was very easy! I will be doing this in my class. Might do whole sound track first, then get them to work on sets in smaller groups. I will use paper to start with because it seemed lots quicker then moving the Lego. I think the students in my class are all going to really enjoy this!

STEM Challanges

This term I decided to branch out and try some different challenges for the students to achieve. I am looking at doing more of these in my class as STEM challenges have been shown to increase students engagement, and knowledge.

The first week we did bridge building. Students selected there own groups and each group was given 2m of string, 1m of cellotape and the same amount of newspapers. It was interesting seeing what each group did. Some tried to bend the rules...

The following week we built a tower to hold a 1.5l bottle the highest. Again I let them choose their groups. It was interesting see the different ideas. Some students really struggled with building the tower and some really excelled.

The winning team, the boys were pretty excited 

The girls attempt

One of the boys group

My students are enjoying these challenges and it is very good hearing all the different oral language as they discuss what and how they are going to do to achieve the challenge.

Maths

In streamed Maths we have restructured the class a wee bit. We have sent two lower students down to a lower class, where they will be better catered for, as they were becoming very lost during our lessons. In return we have gained a student from a lower class.

Over the holidays I was thinking how can we increase their basic facts knowledge, specifically multiplication, so I created a multiplication tool for each of the students.

This is been well received and the students have really enjoyed using it. In fact the day we gave them out we found it very hard to gain the classes attention as they were so excited and engrossed in practising their tables.

This term we have continued to look at measurement. We looked at time and rotation. Ngami had the great idea of taking all the students outside and getting them to do 1/4 and 1/2 and 3/4 turns. All these turns were performed clockwise (The same direction as a clock) We then moved to time, and got the students to show 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock as well as midday and midnight. This class really enjoy getting outside and moving. We were then able to move into looking at an analog clock and moved into 24 hour time. 

We recapped area and  perimeter and then moved onto volume. Students are all able to explain how to work out the perimeter of an object but struggle to articulate area. They are all able to measure accurately but didn't really understand the concept of volume, until I had a wee brain wave. I got a place value block that was 1cm x 1cm and explained that the block was 1cm3 when we are measuring the blocks we look at how how many of the 1cm x 1cm cubes we can fit in the box. 

Raewyn Green - Writing PLD Cooperative Learning

Raewyn came today and ran some writing PLD for the staff.

The session was on Cooperative learning.
We looked at what you needed for a cooperative learning session. These are:
* Groups of students
* Mixed ability
* Teacher choice
* groups of 3-4 max

Each student is assigned a task as part of the group - These are the Organiser, the Go-fer and the Time keep. The organiser keeps everyone on task and the only once that can communicate with the teacher, the Go-fer fetches everything you need and the Time Keep keeps an eye on the time. Decide who is going to present at the end, as this means that everyone is involved.

These are the activities we did. The book we looked at was Lester and Clyde

Telling the Tale.

Teacher needs to prepare approx 20 – 25 key words or phrases from the story – these are put onto a table and words cut up and put into little plastic bags. Make sure that the key words you give will actually have clues for the first three questions e.g. who might be involved, where might this have happened, when might this have happened.

The other question re what might have happened all the cards can be used. I like to have sentence answers to the questions when the groups report back.

1. Materials manager – pack of key words and phrases, questions for you all to help answer – read through the questions and check that the task is understood. Just need to talk about your ideas – none can be wrong as it is What do you think??? One of your group will be asked to report back but you will not know who that is until the time.

2. 15 minutes to work on questions and then reporting back time.

After all the reporting back :

3. Guided or Shared reading of the story.

Concept Mapping:

4. As a group decide on the 8 key words that are the most important to the story and make a Concept Map – e.g. place the 8 key words on an A3 sheet of paper – around the edge and draw lines between the key words – rite a sentence showing the connection between the two key words.

5.     Dictated Drawing

Teacher decides on 8 key ideas from the story. Students divide an A4 sheet of paper into 8 parts. Each part is to sketch the key idea using pictures and only key words

Teacher reads each Key Idea 3-4 times and gives the students  about 1-2 minutes to complete the sketch

When 8 key ideas are completed students work in pairs and retell the story using their dictated drawings.

6.     Sentence time

Students work in groups of 2.

Use the list of key words and think of sentences joining two of the words each round. Must say the two words at the beginning of each sentence.

Scored on the whiteboard as to the complexity of the sentence.

e.g. 5 avengers and disappeared

Five avenger aircraft left Fort Lauderdale on a routine mission when something went horribly wrong and they all disappeared.

I really enjoyed the cooperative learning idea and how everyone was given a specific job. I can see it working well to develop leadership in my class and will run awesome alongside the way I am trying to set up my literacy programme, where the students support each other.