Guess Who!

It may appear all quiet on the blog front at the moment but rest assured we are still working together, beavering away industriously in the background. We have started an exciting new project with our Year 4 students. A virtual Guess Who! None of our children (about 120 in all) know who each other is, but we have begun an enquiry to see if we can Guess Who? We have exchanged photos without names and these have formed displays which arouse much discussion. Who is who? The children are partnered by name and are now trying to find out who their partner really is. What do they look like? What colour eyes do they have? How long is their hair and what colour? This enquiry is undertaken through different methods. Firstly and quite simply by questionnaire and email. The children are exchaning their questions which they hope will help them identify their partner. The second method is by a Voicethread. This involved yet another lesson delivered by David via Skype to ensure that we were all able to use voicethread to record our questions. You can see the development of this below.

We hope that from these partnerships the children will use Inkscape to create joint pictures which include images of their partners and elements which represent part of each child's cultural heritage.

During this project our collaboration will take an exciting step forward when David Kinane is due to visit the children at Woodford at the end of June. We will certainly be sharing that here!

Global Warming Posters

Year 4 students at Woodford have been learning about explanatory texts. This was also linked to our Geography work on Climate Change. We used the skills learnt from Mr Kinane in our last inkscape sessions to design a poster which would explain Global Warming. This task allowed us to combine a range of curriculum subjects, showing our understanding of explanatory texts, our knowldege of the effects of Global Warming and our ICT and design skills. We started by creating a background image. This was locked and a new layer added before we added our explanatory texts. Completed posters are going to be displayed around the school as part of our EcoSchools project.

The slideshow below shows some completed posters as well as some work in progress.

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Inkscape Developments.

This morning we had a lesson in our ICT Suite from Mr Kinane in New Zealand. This is the third time we have been taught by him. It was 9am here on the 19th March and 10pm on the same day in New Zealand. We could see and hear and speak to Mr Kinane via a webcam and Skype. He was teaching us how to use Inkscape to design a poster. We could see what Mr Kinane was showing us and talking about on a skrbl page. He taught us how to write text and make a shadow. It was interesting to look at the shadow in different places. It was fun. We experimented with polygons and stars which really was fun and exctiting. Some people asked Mr Kinane how to make a star. He is really clever because he just knew the answer and what to do! At the end of the lesson we learnt how to put text on a line (or path). Sometimes the path was too short so the words overlapped and you couldn't see it clearly but you just had to stretch the line out to make it fit. It's amazing how we can learn from another teacher round the other side of the world just using a webcam! We really enjoy these lessons - we are addicted!!



























Chloe Fear, Jack Hayes, Rebecca Skelton and John Upcott of Class 3, WJS

Outstanding

On the 11th December 2007, Woodford Junior School underwent an OFSTED inspection. The report which was published today opens with the statement;

This is an outstanding school providing a high quality of education for its pupils.

Of particular note for this blog is a section which deals with the curriculum.

The curriculum's strong global dimension is illustrated by the exciting ICT link with a New Zealand primary school. This is maintained by pupils exchanging information about their lives and school events. The pupils talk enthusiastically about the lesson taught to them by the New Zealand teacher through the web link.

We are very proud that our work has been recognised by OFSTED and thank our New Zealand friends for making this possible.

Christmas Greetings from Woodford

It is with great tidings of Christmas joy that we write this post! We enjoyed reading about Christmas in New Zealand and it inspired us to create some traditionally British images of Christmas to send to you. (We rose to Mr Kinane's challenge - no more clip art!) We have combined our pictures with photographs of our Christmas performance "Witnesses" and our own soundtrack! We do wish you all at Meadobank a fantastic Christmas, a prosperous New Year (2008!) and a great summer holiday!

Christmas in New Zealand

It is Christmas and it is a special time of the year no matter where you live in the world. For us in New Zealand we are out shopping, buying presents, preparing food like you do in England but we are also planning our summer holidays! There is no talk of white Christmas's here! Christmas is our summer here, so we celebrate Christmas differently, we do not sit around a fire and eat turkey. We do celebrate mid winter here with a Turkey dinner, but at Christmas we head for the beach! Our traditional Christmas lunch is, well see if you can see what it is from our images.

For us there is no Christmas pud, but pavlova and then, depending where you live in New Zealand it is off to the beach, well maybe on Boxing Day. Have a look at what you see here, what is different? What is the same? What more would you like to know? What do you think that it would be like celebrating Christmas in the sun? Would you like to? If not, why not? By seeing how we celebrate does that make you think more about how you all celebrate Christmas in England?

We all hope that you have a merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. We will be back in February after our holidays in the sun!

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What do you call a group of Spiders?

......Mrs Hardie's nightmare! Here are some of the Inkscape Spiders that the Year 4 children of Woodford Junior School created under the instruction of Mr Kinane. We hope that they don't cause too many nightmares!