The children new very early that their main outcome from the book would be to create their own digital versions of Fa Mulan. We started by using talk for writing strategies before using digital cameras to capture their group in a series of still images depicting the story. They then manipulated these in Photoshop Elements to reflect the emotion of Mulan as her story progressed. Finally the imported the finished images into Windows Movie Maker, added a narration of the story from their own head rather than with a pre-prepared script and matched up the images with the narration. Here is an example of the Audio and a couple of still images:

(to come)

Whilst creating their digital books, we examined the role of women in the story, the traditional and contemporary role of women. The children then discussed as a class what they aspire to.

Guided by the children’s interests, we then focused on Japan rather than further exploring China. They decided on a specialism and developed human and physical geography skills. Their specialisms ranged from Sumo and Samurai to pop culture to volcanoes. They created Prezi and paper based presentations and shared them with each other.

One of the highlights of the theme for the children was to create their own papier mache exploding Mount Fuji’s. We researched the volcano and the children put mini flags with facts about Mount Fuji (made from cocktail sticks and paper) in the sides of their volcanoes. After painting them (with varying degrees of accuracy!) the children erupted their creations when parents were invited in to share what the children had been learning about during the theme.

Click here to see one of the volcano erupt

The highlight of the theme for me was a combination of Art and DT units. We dabbled with some child friendly Manga style cartoon drawings but then focused for a whole week on designing and creating Japanese style fighting kites. The children looked at Japanese clothing, culture and Mulan to find the style of design they were after. After creating a final design they turned their attention to the style of kite, how they would attach the string to fly it, how they would fix the dowling rods. The kites took a lot of fiddly sowing but almost all the children loved the repetitive process, almost like a less messy version of papier mache (?!). You can see some of the kites on display below. I was particularly impressed that the final kites clearly reflected the final designs and the stages of development. Even more impressive was that most of them actually kind of flew (well, when the children ran with their kite on three meters of string anyway!).

Calculation – Addition

Calculation – Subtraction

Calculation – Multiplication

Calculation – Division

If you would like to directly embed any of the tutorials, click here for a full list and embed links.

Phil Bagge has also created a large set of Maths video help files along with his host of other help files. Click here to visit.

What was to come was complete immersion in the Wii game: Wild Earth. The children used the game to familiarise themselves with the setting, take notes, work cooperatively and generally get a real feel for what it would be like on Safari (including frustrating waits trying to find an animal before the elation of finally coming across it). I would love to have taken the use of the game further but we only had 6 weeks for the entire theme. Of all the themes we have carried out this year, it is Wild Earth that the children wanted to continue with when it had finished.

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

After designing their creatures, we built and placed them around school. There were discussions during this process about where you would find each creature as we had also been developing understanding of habitats and food chains.

As part of the skill development, we focused on text organisation, particularly paragraphs. The children used post its to make multiple notes for each of the paragraph sections of their explanation text.

We then worked day by day, modelling, writing and analysing paragraph by paragraph. The final outcomes magnified strengths and areas for development in the children’s writing even more than usual (although I suspect that is more to do with tricky Explanation Texts rather than the angle we took). What I am sure of though is the engagement that was created by the children directing their learning, imaginary creatures in general and the range of learning styles that we managed to incorporate.

When I first trialled using it I initially let the children play and they loved the freedom that Storybird gives them, whilst still supporting them structurally through the artwork on each page. For frequent classroom use however, it needs to be used for more than just a creative outlet.  It needs to support objectives and skills development. So I used it myself to create a whole class text to try and see where it could be used in the classroom. Here is the book I created:

I found it surprisingly difficult to structure the text as its very nature is a page by page story that doesn’t necessarily have a way of creating a story mountain type structure etc (this makes sharing a story between collaborators easy to continue). However, this actually offers the opportunity for a great position in the classroom for Storybird. To be used as a tool for children to practice a developing skill. During the book I wrote, I tried to pack it with as many adverbials as possible as that is currently our sentence level focus in Year 4. Over a few days, during whole class sessions we worked on how to start a sentence with an adverbial clause. I then set an assignment related to adverbials, instructing the children to try and fit in an adverbial to each page. I deliberately didn’t give them any more structure as we were at the stage where they just needed to practice the skill. Using Storybird allowed this to happen but in an engaging way for the children. Here is an example:

Beyond writing, Storybird has fantastic potential for MFL. @lisibo has written several Spanish stories and converted them into video files here with her reading out the story in Spanish – How awesome is that?! @wizenedcrone has created a fantastic resource which is a collection of MFL storybirds here (French, Spanish, German and Italian).

If you have any other ways you have or are thinking about using Storybird in the classroom I would love to hear about them, please leave a comment below. If you are thinking about using it, give it a go – it’s well worth the effort!

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The starting point for the theme was taking what worked well during last year’s units of work on rivers and habitats together with evaluations carried out by last year’s class. Whilst teaching rivers, habitats, explanation texts and control had built a solid, coherent theme it hadn’t engaged and motivated the children particularly well. I needed to consider how my current class’ interests could be used to enhance what did work well from last year and in doing so, it was clear they had an untapped love for animals, nature and the environment.

It was at about the same time that I quite coincidentally discovered two resources that would heavily influence the planning for ‘Wild Earth’. The first was this incredibly inspiring recording of Tim Rylands, presenting at the hand held learning conference in 2009. Tim talks about using the Wii game ‘Wild Earth: African Safari’ (about 3 minutes in) to immerse, excite and impact on children and their learning. He goes on to use a variety of web tools and a jungle from the PC game ‘Myst’ to showcase a range of different directions that could develop.

The second was the blog posts and twitter messages by Tom Barrett related to the fantastic ‘Sealife’ theme he introduced for his class. Tom used the Wii game ‘Endless Oceans’ as a central resource which clearly immersed and motivated his class. What I love about both ‘African Safari’ and ‘Endless Oceans’ is that both games go beyond simply immersing and motivating children. There are plenty of learning opportunities within each game, for example ‘African Safari’ gives a huge amount of detail on the animals and their habitats which could have easily been used during last year’s habitats unit.

I think the metaphor ‘standing on the shoulders of giants’ is quite apt for core ideas that have led to the creation of the ‘Wild Earth’ theme. Below is an outline of the plan for the theme.

• The Wii Game ‘Wild Earth: African Safari’ to be used as a central resource throughout the theme
• Focus of the theme to be on the Serengeti National Park
• Explanation Texts (including river courses, food chains)
• Stories From Other Cultures (African based)
• A focus on habitats and rivers to be merged together, linking with the Zanbezi river, a variety of habitats focusing on those in the Serengeti, playing the Wii game. Lots of opportunities to extend Literacy skills such as note taking, speaking and listening, drama etc
• Control and DT: Children design and create a working prototype damn system to minimise flooding (researching the Thames Barrier and using Lego NXT)
• Art focusing on the work of Stephen Njenga (particularly his Picasso esq portrayal of animals)
• Music and Dance: Children create their own African tribal composition, in dance mixing creative and instructional styles (instructional element based on this)
• Class Novel: The Last Leopard by Lauren St John. Chosen after discussion with Nicola Stables who has also used African Safari in her classroom.

I will be flexible in the content when the theme moves from Explanation Texts to Stories From Other Cultures. We are lucky to have a day with a creative practitioner where we will be creating imaginary creatures that could live in particular habitats that we focus on. If the children are inspired by this then we will continue down an imaginary creatures line of content, otherwise we will revert back towards the animals of the Serengeti, or perhaps a different direction, dictated by the children.

A few of the online resources I am looking forward to possibly using are:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/africam—nkorho-pan

http://ecodazoo.com/

http://www.switcheroozoo.com/

http://www.tomscott.com/weather/starwars/

http://www.buildyourwildself.com/

A complete set of online links related to ‘Wild Earth’ are here.

Finally. I’m hoping to deck out the classroom in some fabric to mimic a Serengeti woodland area and visit to the local Cuerden Valley Park with the class to investigate a local habitat and river.I will hopefully be writing regular blog posts, updating on what is happening during the theme, reflecting on what has worked and what has not been effective. I can’t wait to find out!

Image courtesy of MazetMan.

To set up Voicethread for your class, I would recommend creating a year group educational account and sharing the log in details with the children. Under settings, create an ‘identity’ for each child.

You can add multiple pages, such as in this peer review example. To play each page, click the right arrow (bottom right) and then press play (bottom middle). Alternatively, once on a page with comments, you can jump to a particular person’s comment by clicking on them.

Below is a video example of using Voicethread in the classroom to support writing:

Peer Review from Peter Richardson on Vimeo.

Please share how you have used Voicethread in the classroom to support writing. Was is motivational? Was there an impact? What worked well? Would you use it again? Would you do anything differently? What other areas could you use it? Were there any technical problems?

Please share your use of by typing into the pad below or click here to add to the pad.

Useful Links

Interesting ways to use Voicethread in the classroom

Voicethread and peer reviewing blog post

Quick video on the use of Voicethread in the classroom