Category Archives: Wii

Wii

Nintendo Wii @ St Timothy’s Primary

Background

We borrowed the wii to provide motivation for children to participate in physical activity. We also wanted to improve the fine and gross motor skills of P1 children and in particular children with Additional Support Needs. 

How ICT supported Learning and Teaching

We used the wii within our P.E. sessions, Purposeful Play and our school Fun Day. Children played a variety of games from the wii sports package in small groups. During P.E. we used the wii as a station within our fitness stations. Children rotated through all stations ensuring that everyone had a turn. During Purposeful Play the wii was used as a specific area where children could develop their movement skills.

Impact/Conclusion

Many children were experienced in using the wii and were skilled in using the controllers and navigating through the games. We found the wii had a positive impact on social interaction. Experienced wii users enjoyed explaining to less experienced users how to use the controllers to play the games. The games also provided the children with a topic of conversation and the communication between players and the audience during the games was an unexpected benefit. The wii also provided an excellent way for children with ASN/physical disabilities to participate fully in physical activity and to develop their fine and gross motor skills. All children enjoyed using the wii and were motivated to take part in physical activity.

Here are some of their thoughts:

“I liked playing the tennis. It was the best part.”

“The bowling was fun.”

“I liked playing the wii during the fun day because it was fun.”

“I liked when I was playing with my friends because it was good fun.”

“Everyone got a shot of the wii.”

“It was good in gym because it was fun.”

“It was super fun.”

Wii

Nintendo Wii – St. Patrick’s Kilsyth

We borrowed a Nintendo Wii from the lending Library.  It was used by classes as a reward during Golden Time.  The children wanted to make sure they didn’t lose any time so they got their time slot to play.  It was a great incentive.  

Whilst doing some co-operative learning tasks the primary 7’s used it as one of there stations as a way of working together.

Here are some of the children’s comments. “We had fun together in our cooperative groups.” “We brought in some of our own games and looked at how we could use them for warm ups in PE.” “Golden Time was great fun.”

Wii

Nintendo Wii

Here we are using the Nintendo Wii at our Gadgets and Gizmos Golden Time Club.

This club was set up at the request of the children and we borrowed some items to use as a trial. This has proven so popular that the Pupil Council have now used some money they had raised to buy one for the school.

Here are some of the children’s comments. “Great because you could play against each other.” “Felt more like playing than work.” “Liked playing with all the fun games.” “Made Golden Time more fun.”

Wii

Endless Ocean using the Wii

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BACKGROUND

We were going to study barrier reefs with P5 and one of our teachers had experienced Games Based Learning and so we decided to use the wii and Endless Ocean as a hook in to our topic.

HOW ICT SUPPORTED TEACHING AND LEARNING

The children used the wii to dive in the ocean, to discover marine life and then recorded their findings. There was a class diving log to fill in and personal dive diaries too. The wii was an incentive and it encouraged children to improve their report writing too. Children, including some reluctant writers, were asking to write in their diaries. In class work we learned about aspect of the sea and the Great Barrier Reef. The children used a variety of sources, including the internet, to research different marine creatures. They were also encouraged to keep up a personal factfile, where they could research anything that was related to our topic. This gave the children an opportunity explore aspects of the Barrier Reef that they wanted to find out about.

The children drew imaginary sea creatures and wrote biographies for them. They used a programme called Crazy Talk to ‘bring them to life’. It’s a programme that can animate 2D drawings and make them speak, having recorded the children’s voices.

Emma b ocean

We also explored  the importance of caring for the reef and the environmental issues surrounding them . The children used flip cameras to record

adverts for eco friendly tourist attractions to the reef. As a natural extension to this topic we also covered Australia.

We linked up with a school in Kirkintilloch who were also doing the same topic. We used Glow during the topic, we held Glow meets between the two classes where we presented powerpoints we had made to each other.

The children from each school were able to discuss their topic with each other using a discussion forum in their joint Glow group. Finally we ended the link with a Glow meet spelling bee. Three children represented each class and were tested on spelling word that were related to the topic had been set throughout the study. This was a great experience and the children really enjoyed the interaction with another school.

IMPACT AND CONCLUSION

The wii was actually a tiny part of our topic, however it was probably the most important in the children’s mind. They didn’t see learning or class work as a chore. It was a tool to get on the wii! They were learning whilst they were playing. The game had an educational slant and they were learning social skills. We are hoping to do this topic again next year, along with some other Games based learning topics.

Find out more about our topic in the children’s words

http://www.cumbernauld-pri.n-lanark.sch.uk/CPS_Classes/2009_2010/5c_Topic5

Find out more about our school by visiting our web page

http://www.cumbernauld-pri.n-lanark.sch.uk/

Wii

Wii – Eastfield Primary

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Background

Raising awareness of healthy living and promoting the recent Winter Olympics. We also wanted to highlight the importance of working as a team and sportsmanship as well as sharing and taking turns.

How ICT supported learning and teaching

The Smartboard was linked up to the Wii system and which allowed 4 children to play the Wii on the big screen. Children brought in a variety of games and had the choice of what game they wished to play. Included was Mario and Sonic at the Winter Olympics, which introduced the children to new events and words such as the luge, skiing, skating and curling. This could be discussed back in class and developed into the rules of the game etc.

We set out clear instructions when playing on safety and looking after the equipment and made the children responsible for tidying away controllers and games at the end of the day.

Impact / conclusion

Most of the children had experienced the Wii before and had lots of knowledge on how to navigate to games and how to safely play the game. It was interesting, however, to notice that the children were not used to clearing after themselves and making sure each game was placed back in the appropriate place. We moved this discussion into the classroom on looking after possessions and belongings. The children loved to show off their skills though and were very competent at using the system.