Our P7 pupils at Barnhill were involved in keeping a pictorial and video diary of the year. We then created a movie file and used free music from glow to play over the top of our images and videos. Have a look at the video below which is streamed through our glow wiki page. The children loved making this and enjoyed the ICT aspect but also learned much about working co-operatively.
https://wikis.glowscotland.org.uk/@api/deki/files/30368/=Barnhill_P7_end_of_year_film.wmv
Post written by Lorraine Munro
I’m an Early Years Practitioner in a Primary One (ages 4 and 5) class in Dundee, Scotland. I am also a Promethean Advocate. As a previous ICT Staff Tutor, I was interested in using gaming as a hook to engage young children with all aspects of learning. We often loaned out gaming resources to schools and early years establishments as part of an initiative to support learning in the classroom through Curriculum for Excellence, Scotland’s curriculum for 3–18 year olds. The Learning Teaching Scotland website has a dedicated area to game based learning.
When I returned to school after the summer break, I was really excited to put my experiences into practice. In the last school year, we have used a variety of consoles and games to support our youngsters in their learning. This is our journey through the year…
We began by using two Nintento DS’ at the writing table. I introduced Pictochat to the children and they practised writing sounds and letters they had been taught by the teacher. They also liked to practise writing their name and it was a great way to encourage emergent writing. They enjoyed ‘sending’ their writing to each other and this activity was a real winner with the boys. They had no problem with the small stylus and, in fact, this really helped with pencil control.
We have approximately ten Nintendo DS’ and are using them across the school. It has been embraced and other classes have used them in different areas:
In Primary One, we then moved on to using the Playstation 2 with the Eye Toy. We used the game Play. I would give the children clear instructions on what game was to be played and the children would very quickly pick up the on-screen instructions. The area surrounding the game was set up to support number recognition and I would encourage the children to find their score on the number square. We also looked at Health and Wellbeing outcomes like sharing space, being aware of rules and turn taking.
We were lucky to buy gaming equipment for the school and purchased a Wii and Xbox with Kinect. Primary One children were allowed to try out the Wii and as we were doing a Health topic, we decided on FIT, which is a Dora and Diego game. Although this game is for one player, we had up to four children taking part at any time. One person held the Wii remote but all four children did the activities. Children won medals when they completed a routine so we decided to take this opportunity to support maths and every time the children won a medal they added it to our graph.
We also used the Wii game Just Dance as a whole class activity during our health week. We had four Wii remotes and everyone had a turn to hold the Wii remote and gain a score. This game was a huge success and is now one of our whole school Friday activities.
The next game we used was Yogi Bear. The children were engrossed in a Goldilocks and the Three Bears topic and I was looking at bears in my area. This game was less active, but we adapted the area to look more like Jellystone Park and although this was also a one player game we had two children participating at any time. This meant there was also a peer there to encourage and support when necessary. We moved the writing table beside the Wii area and this encouraged the boys to write and draw about their experiences with the game. Near the end of the topic, we had a Yogi Bear book. The children recorded their experiences of using the game in the book by drawing a picture and writing. Some asked me to scribe for them while others felt confident enough to have a go themselves.
We encountered a few difficulties using the Wii as it was a very popular activity and was very much in demand. This meant that not all the children were getting an opportunity to use the game, as some were always there fast and some would stay on for a while. We devised a simple laminated sheet of all the children’s names and a whiteboard pen. I scored off the name when a child picked the Wii and they weren’t allowed to go back on until everyone had a turn. Once all the names were scored off, we cleaned the name board and we could start again. We also had a ten-minute timer so the children were responsible for setting this when they began the game. We also discussed rules for the game with the children and displayed them. We reminded children of these rules regularly and these complimented our Health and Wellbeing lesson plan within our curriculum
As a school we had also purchased X Box Kinect with Kinectimals. As we had an Animals topic near the end of the school year, we thought this would engage our youngsters and give opportunities for lots of discussion about animals. It did, but also supported all areas of the curriculum. We had to look at a number of different elements to make this work for us.
The area needed to be big enough so the child using the Kinect could be found by the sensor, but we didn’t want children to be using this in isolation from others. This meant we also had to fit in some kind of seating for other children to watch, discuss and support their peer through the game without them also being picked up by the sensor.
At first, using our previous gaming organisation ideas, we all had a turn at interacting with and getting to know the different cubs. We then voted using ActivExpressions about which one would be the P1 cub. We then chose the cub, which was the Black Panther cub and then proceeded into the game. The children taught the cub tricks and played games with it. They supported each other in performing the activities and carrying out the tricks. Lots of different curricular areas were supported, from maths when one child read his score of 295 and others read instructions on the screen hitting literacy outcomes. Experience was gained in Health and Wellbeing outcomes when children showed how they led and supported the learning of others and showed genuine care and understanding in caring for the cub. Overall, this game had a huge learning potential. It is not as easy to use an early years setting as the Wii, but it was well worth the effort.
Our latest piece of work with the Wii has come from our transition with our nursery children (up to age 4) moving into Primary One. The nursery children had used the Mii Channel on the Wii console to create Miis for all the children as part of a topic about themselves. This allowed each child to create a Mii with their hair colour, eye colour, face shape and even find the letters in their name. When the children moved into P1, the Wii console came with them. The children have been using the Wii Sports game and bowling. This has given me an opportunity to create Miis for all the children who came to our school not from our nursery. It has also meant that the children can find their Mii when playing the bowling game. Furthermore, this game allows me to observe children who can read numbers to ten and begin early addition.
Our experiences with gaming are still developing and we are always looking for ways to engage our young people. Our latest purchase has been an iPad and we look forward to how we can support our children through their learning in new and innovative ways.
In August 2010 I was given responsibility for a P4/5 class. In reading, it became apparent that the majority of the children were able to decode words confidently and read aloud, however they needed support to meet the Curriculum for Excellence Reading outcomes connected with ‘understanding, analysing and evaluating’ (literacy outcomes 16 – 19). I decided to adapt a Reading Detective programme outlined by Dundee City Council and to use it as the basis for a programme in class. The programme defines various reading skills and attaches a detective role to each; the children are encouraged to become these detectives whilst examining texts in class and at home. I chose eight reading skills to focus on: Summariser, Word Finder, Question Master, Passage Master, Link Maker, Illuminator, Mind Mapper and Style Seeker.
My adapted program began with the children receiving a brown manila envelope with a CD inside it sent by the ‘Department of Crimes Against Literature’, a special police department set up within Dundee to fight the eight members of the B.A.D. (Books are Dull) Gang. The children completed enrolment forms for the Trainee Officer Scheme and thereafter, on a weekly basis, received a case file about a member of the gang and an appropriate ‘training mystery’ to solve in class. The children therefore experienced a different reading skill each week since each member of the B.A.D. Gang corresponded to a specific Detective role. Once they had completed all the tasks a graduation ceremony was held and each child was presented with a Detective Kit.
The children, however, found some of the skills harder than others, particularly the skills which involved looking at how a writer uses descriptive language to convey meanings and feelings (Style Seeker and Illuminator), so the following term was spent focussing on these skills through the context of fairytales. Fairytale characters and stories were under attack from the B.A.D. Gang and they sent messages to the children. They were ‘trained’ to spot true and fake ‘mixed up’ stories. I chose to focus on 6 ‘mixed up’ fairytale books including ‘The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs’ by Jon Scieszka and ‘Goldilocks Returns’ by Lisa Campbell Ernst and the children ‘examined’ these in mixed ability groups. I also worked in collaboration with staff from the Learning Resources department and the Schools Library Service, and arranged visits to two local libraries in the area which had just been ‘attacked’ by the B.A.D. Gang.
The children have become much more confident talking about, and using, the skills required when reading and will often apply these skills in different contexts and other curricular areas. They are also extremely enthusiastic about Reading Detective tasks and so I wanted to channel this energy into tackling longer texts which require greater concentration. This term we focussed on the works of Dick King Smith: farmers have been calling the department to say that they have been finding fields filled with torn up books by the author. Instead of sending home books from the school reading scheme, all the children read a Dick King Smith novel suitable for their level of reading. He was a prolific writer and wrote for a variety of reading abilities. The children were put in to small ‘book groups’ and they chose the book they would like to read and discuss. We may also visit the Central Library in Dundee, however it is all dependent upon what the B.A.D. Gang will get up to next!
I have recently been lucky enough to have been given a Promethean Board to use in the Active Learning Zone area I work in. The children in P1 are well used to using the board in the classrooms with the teacher but I needed them to use the board with little or no adult support. The youngsters know how to calibrate the board so I was confident they could do this with support from their fellow pupils if necessary.
I decided to allow the children to use the Active Inspire software and just let them play with it. They drew pictures, wrote their names, changed colours, pen size and drew shapes. The only support I gave was to show them how to do something if they asked, eg. How do I get a new page? How do I change the background colour? Children choose the Promethean Board as an activity and up to three can go there at once although only one can use the board at a time. The children watch patiently and give instructions and help to the person on the Promethean Board when needed.
We have moved on to drawing with a purpose. A recent health topic looked at the different parts of our faces. I had a display next to the Promethean Board to remind them of the different parts of the face and gave instructions that the activity on the Promethean Board today was ‘drawing your own face’. I also left a mirror for them to check how they looked so they could copy. The children were asked to write their name on the flipchart page before they finished. Here are some of the pictures they drew.
The children have become really confident with the Active Inspire software and really enjoy creating and sharing their creations with each other and on their P1 blog. We also print off some of their activities do keep in their individual Folio of Work which is a reflection of their time in P1 which they can share with their parents. The children have become confident individuals who can share their learning with others.
Lorraine Munro, READ Early Years Practitioner, Dens Road Primary School, Dundee.
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