For one of our literacy activities this week students are choosing someone that they would like to complete a brief biography on. After identifying the features of a biography and looking at the ways in which we could still incorporate these whilst keeping them relatively brief, students began their research. They are completing a draft of their biography and then we are working together to identify the areas that we would need to change from 3rd person to 1st person when we record into iFunFace (iPad app). We found a picture of the person in question and loaded it into iFunFace and began the morphing process! This proved to be quite an engaging and fun activity for students to practice their research, writing and oral language skills all in one! Here are a few examples of our work, but stay tuned for more throughout the week! We hope you enjoy them! Have you used iFunFace in class before?
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Over the last fortnight in our Literacy block I planned an activity for my students that required them to watch a silent video clip. After watching this clip, which was very funny, my students then had to write a short script of what the characters or commentators of the baseball game could be saying. When they had finished scripting they then had to load the silent video clip into iMovie and record themselves over the top. Some students used music to enhance their final product, where others were happy to simply commentate. (For all of the teachers out there, the trick to getting the video into iMovie is to locate it from You Tube and save into a Dropbox account that can then be opened on an iPad or other iDevice. You are then able to download the video into your camera roll and use in iMovie, a trick I will definitely be using in the future!). My class had a good time doing this and were very conscious of the way they were presenting their work. I think that you will agree that they have done quite a good job! Leave a comment below to let us know what you think but remember we are still learning as well, so be kind!
Watch the following video. It's a fable titled "The Lion and the Mouse". A fable is a short imaginary story that teaches a moral or lesson. While you watch the video, think about the lesson it teaches; that is the same thing as the main idea of the story. Post a comment below telling me what you think the 'Main Idea' of the fable was. Around about two weeks ago I was trawling the internet and stumbled across Mr. P's ICT blog. I spent hours going through some of his amazing ideas for use of ICT in the classroom and still only scraped the surface of what he had on show (I seriously recommend having a look!) Whilst looking for inspiration I found an activity he used with a grade 5 class that looked at whales in captivity….and this got me wondering if I could use the same concept with my grade 5/6 class. Before we go any further, full credit for the ideas based around these lessons go to Mr. Parkinson and I am very grateful that I was able to engage my class using these. Below is the first clip I showed to my students. It looks at orca's performing at SeaWorld. Once the clip had finished I prompted them to think about how the clip made them feel. The majority of responses were related to feelings of happiness, amazement and awe at how such beautiful creatures can perform and look so majestic. I then prompted them to think about how the whales actually got there; how they were looked after and cared for. I mentioned that I had recently seen the trailer to a movie called 'Black Fish' and wanted to share this with them. The initial reaction to whales performing and being kept in captivity immediately changed. Many questions were asked, lots of research conducted and consequently many questions were answered. It was now our class mission to create persuasive videos to help the plight of orcas in captivity. We discussed the effect of music, lighting, colour and surroundings. We looked at powerful language, rhetorical questions and a range of complex sentences…..all of which would help us to persuade our viewers! But it didn't stop there! Just for a little bit of healthy competition as a class we decided to put our videos up on YouTube and see whose video received the most views and likes (we also had other criteria in our rubric that needed to be addressed). THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN!! There are 5 videos posted below. We would like you to view them all and then if possible (you need a google account) LIKE the one you think is the most PERSUASIVE. If you are unable to LIKE due to lack of google account, I have posted a poll below and you can enter your results there. Thank you in advance!
Having seen how their faces lit up and the way they wanted to immediately reply or add another post, got me thinking of other ways to make this happen on a more regular basis…my answer was Quadblogging. I had heard of this before and knew it was a way to connect but had never really taken the time to find out what was involved. But that has all changed…earlier in the year I signed our class up for this challenge and the comments are coming thick and heavy…and the authentic writing is becoming more regular. Each week a class is the focus blog and the remaining 3 classes take time in the week to add comments to any posts they wish. Last week we were the focus class and my students were very excited to receive comments on both our class blog and their own personal learning blogs. Throughout 4 weeks, each class will have the opportunity to be the focus blog, thus generating new connections across the globe…….we have only just started and I can't recommend it enough already! Check our our schedule below: Week 1: 5/6S at St. Patricks Primary School Camperdown
Week 2: Henry Cavendish Primary School Week 3: Mr. DiFiore's Class Week 4: Ghyllside Primary School Have you ever been involved in Quadblogging before?
On Monday as an introduction to our new maths topic Mrs. Sinnott created a QR maths trail around the school! We formed groups of four, named our teams and armed ourselves with an iPad and QR scanner and off we went. So that we didn't just follow each other one team was allowed to leave the classroom after every minute had passed, a bit like a handicap race! We read our first question and there were three possible answers, the correct answer lead us to our next clue, so we had to be careful that we didn't get 'lead up the garden path' so to speak! There were twelve questions in all, and despite being the last team to leave the room.....team Skittles returned with the quickest time after having answered and recorded all of the answers in their maths journals. Have you used QR codes in the classroom before?
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WHO ARE WE?
Hi there! We are a class of 25 students in year 5/6S in Camperdown, Victoria. This year we are embarking on a blogging journey to develop our global connections, share our work and learn from others!5 OUR BLOG QR
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April 2015
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