Hour of Code

Well, what a busy few weeks we've had...the same as every other classroom I guess! The usual Christmas concert practice and performances, Christmas parties, card and calendar making and generally tying up loose ends before the end of term. In amongst the madness of the concert practices and performances, somehow, we managed to find calm...thank you Hour of Code!!

So, in September I made the move from Year 6 to Year 3/4. Immediately, I exposed them to more uses of iPads and IT than they had the previous year and, probably the biggest success yet, introduced them to programming and coding. They're hooked! Firstly, they found a love through apps on the iPads. Subsequently, the Hour of Code came along and worked it's magic! The improvement in logical thinking, sequences of codes and general understanding of imputing commands has been superb!

Some of the children hadn't had the opportunity to work with this element of IT yet have picked up the idea rapidly. The group have completed the 10 levels of 'Flappy Bird', have worked through the 'Frozen' section and  absolutely love the 'Angry Birds' problems. 

 

      

    

They are also eager to get started on other software packages such as 'Kodu' and 'Scratch'. Any free time they have they want to spend coding!!! Now the challenge is to find time to regularly allow children to continue developing these important skills!! Scratch is definitely a candidate to use as a coding club. With such great lesson plans available, the Year 6 Digital Leaders would thrive on delivering it. Time within the classroom is the issue though and how to cover everything. This is for another day and another blog entry.

For now. I'd like to say thank you Hour of Code and a huge well done to the children. Long may your enthusiasm and improvements continue!!

One of my very few posts, 

Mr Stone

Year 3 and 4 Christmas concert

Magical Christmas Jigsaw

Last week was a very busy but very exciting week...it was Christmas concert week! Ours was called The Magical Christmas Jigsaw. There were lots of things happening like other concerts that were amazing. Overall we had great fun and had great help! Everyone who took were superb and we even had some children who had to take over others' roles due to them being away. We worked tremendously hard.
The Magical Christmas Jigsaw was all about 5 children who were given a jigsaw from a very kind toy seller.  The jigsaw told the story of Jesus being born in Bethlehem. The 5 children were Meg, Eve, Beth, Tom and Joe. The toy seller was actually a gold angel that guided the children through the story, stopping off at important events of the Nativity along the way. The songs throughout the concert were short and snappy! We loved them. Our favourite songs were Herod and Now a Story has been Told.

Expanded method to subtract

Here's how we have been using the expanded method to subtract numbers.

Harvest Poem

As well as performing our Harvest song 'Let it Grow' (our take on the hit 'Let it Go' from the film Frozen), our class wrote Harvest Poems. We focused on Autumn and tried to use a range of adjectives and adverbs to describe. Here's one of them:

Autumn Time

Autumn

Arid leaves

Squirrels dancing joyfully

The fearful trees sway

Birds singing a beautiful tune

The leaves swirling and twirling peacefully 

Squirrels scattering all day long

Leaves crackling all day

Sticks snapping wildly

Leafless trees

Autumn 

By Charlie 3/4LS

Adding using the expanded method

This is how we add using the expanded method. It is the introduction to column addition where we break the numbers into easier chunks. Here we have added a 2 digit number to a 3 digit number

Adding using a blank number line

Take a look at how to add along a blank number line. Here we have added a 2 digit number to a 3 digit number

How to use the grid method to multiply

Here's how we use the grid method to multiply a 2 digit number by a single digit number e.g. 28 x 3

Doubling and halving diamonds

Here's how we double and halve using a doubling and halving diamond

Science - comparing stretchy materials

We tested the elasticity of materials today and we found out some very interesting things. This is what we did!