BETT 2010 - Olympia

We were so proud to be asked by 2Simple. com to take part in a project with them and Cleveland Primary School.

The outcome of this project would be to take part in a games challenge on the Stephen Heppel Playful learning stand.

We started our project designing games using a great piece of software 2DIY.

We shared our games with our fellow pupils and Cleveland Juniors school and they shared their work with us. visit www.gandcred.blogspot.com
We designed the blog together and through the use of the blog we were able to review and comment on one another games. This lead to reviewing on how we could make our games more challenging and exciting.

Just before the show we meet with the children from Cleveland school via skype, this was most interesting with the children exchanging and sharing.

The children gained a lot from this experience.

When I asked Rishi what he felt he had learned from the project he said that it games him chance to think creatively and used a lot of his thinking skills to design the games.

We are going to be carrying on designing games after half term through our ICT clubs.

To play some of the games visit www.gandcred.blogspot.com

A guide for parents on how to help young children develop ICT skills at home

What is ICT?

ICT stands for Information Communication Technology. This means a range of resources can be used. It does not just mean computers.

• television (remotes)
• telephones
• Dvd players
• video and CD players
• cameras
• programmable toys.
  

Is it important?

With the ever growing fact of becoming environmental friendly, lots of companies and associates are using computers as a way of communicating. It is therefore vital that children obtain the skills to be able to communicate and make good choices in doing so.

How can parents help their children to achieve this?

Give your children as much hands on experience as you can!

• when watching televison asked your child to change the channels turn the tv on/off
• Encourage your child to use play telephones.
• Share your experience of texting/making calls/taking photos with your mobile
• DVD's/video's/Cd players encourage your child to play, stop rewind, select tracks.
• cameras share taking photos together, if you are worried about your child using your camera then share together the viewing of the photos. Let your child watch you if you are uploading them onto a computer.
• programmable toys ie remote control cars, replica machinery ie washing machines, cash registers.

The use of the above devices can stimulate discussion and cooperative problem solving.

Supporting children using a computer.

Mouse:-

• your child should be aware that by moving the mouse controls the pointer on the screen
• when the pointer (arrow) changes to a hand smybol this means there are links.
• help your child to position their hands correctly on the mouse, and encourage the index finger to do the clicking on the correct side of the mouse. (if your child has problems with the mouse size, it may be a good idea to invest in a childs size mouse).
• support your child to click and drag.
• Once your child feels confident with the above skills.
• start to support them in logging on/off.
• double clicking is tricky and you may find you need to guide their hands for a while as movement of the mouse whilst clicking can cause the icons to move on the screen.
• show your child how to print.
• show your child how to save.
• Keyboard:-
• Encourage your child to use both hands whilst typing on the keys.
• use the shift key and not the caps lock key to type capital letters.

Useful websites:-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ The bbc produces some very good educational web pages
www.pingu.net/uk Lots of children love to play these games.
www.pbskids.org/ Games and activities
http://www.kids.yahoo.com/ Games and activities

www.sparklebox.co.uk Lots of printable materials available to support your childs learning

Icing biscuits with Hatton School

Yesterday we linked up with Hatton School once more.

Today we would follow the lead on how to ice biscuits for Christmas time.

Hatton were very organised and sent us patterns that they would be using with the children. This was very much appreciated as we had had a technical issue with dialling up on the video equipment.

Hatton children choose the first pattern that we were to follow. Our children listened carefully so that they could match the correct icing colour.



They then very carefully iced onto their biscuits.

We designed four different patterns, and enjoyed eating them very much.

The children concetrated very hard whilst they were icing, checking with the help sheets and listening carefully to the instructions that were being given from Hatton School.

We would like to thank all the children and staff from Hatton school for making it such a great expierence of sharing one anothers knowledge and skills.

Gearies children and staff have enjoyed all of the activities that they took part in and hope that in the new year that we may continue to share together once again.

Y2's Electricity Warnings!

Over the past half term our year 2 classes, have been using the digital movie makers to produce electrical warning videos.

All the children have worked extremely hard, making their props, and creating their movies

Well Done to all our year 2 children!

I also would like to give a big thank you to Ben, who helped all the classes with the props and filming.

Please note that none of the electrical appliances had fuses in them. So any noises you can hear are made from independent sounds.

Children from Class O.

Children from class P

Children from Class R

Making a fruit salad together.

Today children from Gearies and Hatton school, shared instructions on how to make a fruit salad.

The children from Gearies welcomed Hatton with our hello song.

We then asked Hattons children if they could find and match the fruit that we were showing into the camera.

All the children responded very quickly and were eager to start making the fruit salad.

Once the children had finished matching all the fruits. The adults were asked to peal and core the apples and pears.

Tianna and Jas counted out 5 grapes each and put them into the bowl. Then we peeled two bananas and cut them into small slices. The children from Hatton were watching and following.

The children from Hatton were very good at cutting their fruits . This really helped some of our children to prepare the fruit to be put into the bowl.

All the children were excellent at listening to instructions and were very knee to take part in the making of our fruit salad.

I like to thank all the staff involved in this link up. A big thank you to Ben our video man for operating the camera and keeping us all focused and also a big thank you to Miss Finch for taking all the lovely photographs for us to be able to share our experience with others.

We hope Hatton enjoyed making and eating the fruit salad as much as we all did!

Looking forward to next week when Hatton's children help us to ice some biscuits

Class O meet up with Parkhill Juniors School

Today some of Parkhill Junior children shared their versions of traditional stories.

The children in class O were very excited!

They wrote their own versions of Snow White and the Hare and the Tortoise and read it to us.

I liked the story of the Hare and The Tortoise because it was intresting. They first said what the car is were and discribed it.

by Manisha.Age 6

Supporting Gearies Book Week.

The video conferencing was held on Wednesday this week.

A lot of new children were taking part from Gearies this time. This would be the first time they had experienced video conferencing. The class were still arriving when Dan connected to us,the children became very focused on the board on arriving to the suite really not knowing what to expect. I felt this lead to a little confusion on what was to happen next.

Hatton school also changed format this week, with just a few children taking part.
Gearies started by singing a hello song to welcome Hatton, something we wanted to do as Hatton in previous weeks had always warmly welcomed us.

Our objective this week was just to share a small amount of time thinking of the animals that live in the jungle using toys, picture and children making the sounds.
We sang a song for the children then to choose which animals they would like to meet.
Our children became very excited, with several children standing up at once to share their toys and sounds.

The children from Hatton had work very hard, producing some fantastic pictures and mask. Well done! The children and staff from Gearies really enjoyed you sharing them with us.

We had decided to sing Down in the jungle as our closing song, but lots of us had forgot the words, but Hatton sang along to help us out.

Lots of our children continued to talk about their experience for the rest of the afternoon, and we all felt that it had added additonal excitement to our safari book week.

Thank you Hatton, once again.