You are using an insecure version of your web browser. Please update your browser!
Using an outdated browser makes your computer unsafe. For a safer, faster, more enjoyable user experience, please update your browser today or try a newer browser.
This week the digital leaders investigated the music programmes on Chrome Music Lab
There were 14 different music creators and their aim was to try them all and see if they could make a piece of music with a specific purpose in mind – eg for a children’s cartoon, a news programme or maybe something scary!
Everyone’s favourite was Kandinsky and Shared Piano as they thought these were really easy to make music that sounded good. They agreed that the rest of their class would really enjoy this task. One of the hardest parts was trying not to get carried away and just clicking all the slots! (Shared Piano) and really listening to the melody and rhythm they had created.
“I didn’t realise how easy it was to create a piece of music that I just wrote myself. I am going to have a go at home and show my Mum. Maybe I might do that for a job.”
This half term the Digital Leaders were really pleased to be making a board game using the programme Textease, for the Year 1 children to play.
In the first session they designed their board game on paper, mapping out their pathway and selecting which spaces were going to have the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ rule spaces. These were rules about keeping you safe when going using a computer, tablet or phone.
In the next session they drew their board out in Textease, amending their brush to ensure the lines weren’t too thick and using the snap to grid function so their game spaces were all level.
Then came the fun bit of filling their game spaces with colour and choosing a jazzy background. The boards were really brought to life at this point and everyone was surprised how easy it would be to make their own game again.
Next using their typing skills they typed out the rules into some of their largest spaces – they had two good spaces and two rule breaking bad spaces. They could choose how many spaces backwards and forwards people could go.
To finish off the game, they needed to add a title and some clipart.
Have a look at the pictures, what do you think of our games? We can’t wait to play them!
We are going to be sharing them with the year 1 children in Internet Safety week.
This half term the digital leaders have had an introduction to MS Word, ready for their transition in to year 3. They have been typing out posters to use at their leavers assembly, letting the audience know what they would like to do when they grow up.
First we practised our typing skills using the BBC Dance Mat, trying to use all our fingers rather than just two!! We really enjoyed the website and loved the silly films that went with them! Everyone earned a certificate for their hard work.
Then we were introduced to MS Word. We typed a sentence about what we wanted to do when we grew up and why. To make the text more interesting we learnt how to select the text to add effects. Everyone found it a bit tricky at first having to drag and select the text (as they were used to just clicking on it with Textease to select it) but after a few goes it got a lot easier. They noted that the bar along the top had effects that they needed to change, like font type, size and colour plus things to enhance it further such as bold, italic and underline.
As we were able to select words or in fact just individual letters the whole piece of text could be easily personalised. Most people decided to have their job role in bold text including a highlighted background to really help it pop out from a distance for the audience to see.
The saving process was a little different, but like Textease the document name appeared at the top of the screen. Each week we reopened the same document and made little changes in it. When it was finished it was printed and mounted. It certainly was amazing to see all 120 being held up in assembly.
Lots of people said that they had a computer at home with MS Word and they were looking forward to going home and showing their adults what they had learnt.
In the summer term all the year 2 children work closely with children from our reception classes to help introduce them to our computer suite. They work on a 1:1 basis, helping them to use their log in and how to access Simple City to start using their mouse skills. Lots of the year 2 children were surprised that others were not used to using a mouse. Even though lots of devices now use finger touch as a means of usage, lots of computers still use mice, so it is important that we still learn how to use them. Everyone really enjoyed the chance to teach and be taught by another child.
This half term the Digital Leaders have been supporting the Year 2 children with learning how to make a jumping game using the programme Scratch.
They have been using a video created by the Scratch team to break the process down in to 5 easy steps so they could take their time and really understand what all the code meant and if they made changes to it, how this would effect how their game worked.
They had lots of decisions to make about how they wanted their game to look, choosing from lots of great backgrounds, then choosing two sprites (characters) – one as their main jumping character and the second as their obstacle to jump over. We learnt that the sprites had different costumes so we could change the stance of their character easily.
Everyone liked that the blocks were similar to ones that they had used in Blockly during Hour of Code and were colour coded into categories and were easy to find. We had used some of the blocks before so understood what was going to happen when they were used but others needed a little further explanation.
Once our games were complete we fine tuned them by adjusting our code to make the game run more smoothly, such as adjusting the speed at which the obstacles moved, adjusted the height of the jumps, the size of the sprite and obstacles and their positions on the screen. We did however find that there was a serious bug that enabled your score to increase once you were supposed to be out. One pupil talked this process through with me and we added some lines of code and managed to fix this error. He then shared his workings with the rest of the class so they could add this to their game. Great problem solving stuff!! We also managed to add a countdown timer too, to put our game under a bit of pressure.
By the end of the 5 week process, each partnership had a working game and everyone took turns to play each others game and we all thoroughly enjoyed the process. Lots of people went and tried Scratch at home and shared other code that they had tried. Watch the video to see a finished game.
Background chosenChoosing spriteChoosing soundListening to the soundsAdding the first blocksAdding the problem solving code – great work!Saving our workAdding the glide code for our obstacle
This half term the Digital Leaders have been leading sessions writing algorithms for Beebots. They have been using direction cards to write out the algorithm before keying this into the Beebot. As the Beebot moves they have been checking that the algorithm is correct and identifying any place where there is a bug. They set each other challenges using the pathway mats, asking their partner to write an algorithm to get the Beebot from one place to another. They also made is more challenging by adding hot spots where the Beebot wasn’t allowed to go, or asking for the Beebot to travel the whole distance backwards! They also used the challenge cards which asked for algorithms to be written to make shapes and letters.
This week saw the much awaited return of Rec Road Radio, our school’s very own radio station! Before covid the school used to broadcast it’s own radio station once a week on a Friday afternoon but sadly during covid this wasn’t possible, but happily it is now back!
Click here to listen to the latest episode or visit our radio page for further details.
The logo that we have been using was created a few years ago and we thought it was about time that it received an update, so some children from Swifts class had a little go with some designs using Textease – which one do you like?
As part of SID week 2024 the Year 2 children played their Esafety Board Games that they had created last term with the Year 1 children. We split each class into 2 groups and all the children worked together and had a chance to sample all the games in their group. The Year 2 children tested the Year 1 children’s knowledge about Esafety by asking them questions from their good and bad spaces they had created on their board.
“I really liked their board games. They look just like a real game.”
“They asked me questions but I knew about not giving away my personal information to someone I don’t know.”
“I remember when the Year 2 children visited us last year and I really enjoyed it so I want to make sure that the Year 1 children remember this like I did!”
Did you spot it? The website about the Amazing Fish? Yes that’s right – it was fake!!!! To teach the Year 2 children a really important message about not reading everything you believe on the internet, I created my own fake website all about a fish that was living in a sandpit. I made sure that the story was almost believable, but not quite.
When I revealed this to the children, some said that they had tried to click on some of the links and wondered why they weren’t working – now they realised why. We talked more about how to work out if websites are true and the measures we could do to help work it out, like checking the facts on another website, asking an adult to check with you, or looking in a book.
Our next job was to create our own fake websites, coming up with stories what were nearly true! We worked in teams and each on of the 4 Year 2 classes wrote a different idea. We are hoping to show you the results soon.
“Your website was so real looking, but if I had tried to look for the Tampa Journal I would have realised really quickly that it didn’t exist and that the story was made up.”
A lot of our learning, especially in Year 2 is accessed via weblinks on our school website so that children can use these websites at home with an adult if they wish.
It is very important that we know how to access websites safely and what sort of information we can share with people we don’t know and also with people we do know.
We have been using the website Interland to remind us of how to use the internet safely and have now received a certificate for our work!
