Angles in Maths Rotations

This term in 3 Orange we have been using the I-pods as part of our maths rotations. Each week we have focused on different areas of maths. One area we have focused on, is angles. As part of our angles rotation we have used the I-pods to take pictures of different angles we found around the school. Once we had taken our pictures of angles we used different apps to sort and write or record captions for each picture. Most people used Sonic Pics to do this.

Brooke liked doing this activity because she could explore the different angles we have at school.

Noah really enjoyed being able to take the pictures of the different angles.

Miranda was excited because she found lots of angles in one area.

Blake didn’t like the activity very much because there was not enough variety. Luca and Beau also agree with Blake.

Liam didn’t like the activity because there were to many angles around the school. Ryan also agrees and found it confusing because there were to many angles.

Angles are awesome

In 3B we have been using the iPods in our Math's rotations to show what we have learnt about angles.

First, we had to find different sized angles in our classroom. We were looking for angles that were smaller than a right angle, the same size as a right angle and ones that were larger than a right angle. To help us to know the size of an angle, we used the right angle tester we made in class.

Then we had to take 6 photos of the different angles we had found in the room. To make sure we got a good photo of the angle, we learnt how to zoom in when we took a photo.

Once we had all of the photos we needed, we added the photos from the photo gallery to Sonic Pics. We then sorted the photos in order from the smallest angle to the largest angle. Some children recorded information about their photos onto Sonic Pics.

We showed our teacher our work and also shared it with the other children in our group.

Some children also used Story Kit and Comic Touch to sort the photos of the angles and to add some text about their photos.

This activity helped us to learn more about angles because it allowed us to share the angles we had found with other people. We had fun using the apps and recording and sharing our ideas. We learnt a lot and we are looking forward to learning more about angles.

Photo Fun

We went to to Caboolture Historical Village on Thursday 27th October for an excursion. In class we have been learning about the history of the local area near our school. We investigated the difference between life in the early days in Mt Gravatt/Wishart and Mt Gravatt/Wishart today. These photos were taken with an iPod touch and we uploaded them onto the blog for you to have a look at.

First stop for Year 3W was the "Washing" area. They didn't have any electric washing machines like we have today. Lots of washing had to be done by hand using a "blue bag" (soap). They had to use a "wash board" to scrub the clothes clean. After the clothes were washed in the "pummel", the clothes were then put through the "roller" to squeeze all the water from the clothes.

We were lucky enough to enjoy a train ride through the village and got to look at all the places to visit. We went through a tunnel and were allowed to SCREAM as loud as we wanted!

Next stop was the Gem Club to fossick for gems. When we arrived we received a "lucky dip" and a container of "sand". We took turns to pour our container of sand into a big sifter and to our delight we discovered some hidden gems in amongst the sand. We were even allowed to take our gems home.

We enjoyed a visit to the blacksmith next. We learnt that blacksmiths make things out of metal and they put it in the fire and then they use an anvil and a hammer to mould it into the shape they want. The items then had to be left to cool. Ethan was lucky enough to use the "sandstone wheel" which sharpens the tools.

Our last set planned visit was to the "Spinning". Erika showed us a spinning wheel and how you change sheep's wool into yarn. We learnt that we could dye the colour of the wool by using gum leaves and paper tree bark. To use the spinning wheel you used one hand to hold the wool, and a pedal at your foot would help to spin the wheel.

We enjoyed visiting the old school house with very old desks. There was a long list of rules on the wall for female teachers to follow. The "cane" looked a bit scary and we realise how lucky we are that we are not caned at school today.

We visited an old police station which had an old typewriter and an old safe. The jail cells at the back of the police station were pretty scary and we decided we would not like to be locked up with no bathroom and a very uncomfortable bed.

We found we ran out of time to see all the old buildings before we had to leave. However, we did get to have a quick look at the hospital and an old house, the General store, the Chapel, and the Railway shop.

We had a very nice day at the Caboolture Historical Village. Our opinion was divided as to whether we would prefer to live back in the olden days or today!!!

Becoming an app expert

On Thursday, different groups in 3B got to explore a new app each and to become mini experts on these apps. The apps the class explored were PS Express, Type Drawing, Finger Paint and Doodle buddy. Here are some of our thoughts about these apps.

PS Express - This app is one you would use to customise a photo. This means you can add colours, styles and other features to a photo.

Emerson thought this app was cool because you can make the picture's rainbow coloured. Finn discovered you can make the photos sparkle, Meg liked how you could change the photo into what looks like a sketch and Joshua found out you could make a photo look like an olden day photo and put it into a frame.

Type Drawing - This app is a word doodling app, where you can make picture patterns with words.

Hannah didn't find this app as much fun as other apps she has used, Jacob found out he could adjust the font and text, Simon found you could change the design that you draw, Tahlia discovered she could c

hange the colours of the font, Jack found out you could change the way the images looks. Lucy

was away and is going to try this app out next week.

Finger Paint - This app is a drawing app.

Luke found out he could change all of the colours, Maia and Noah liked how you could change all of the different effects, for example fur, lines or squares. Daniel liked how he could sketch using the app, Alex found out how to do lots of different things with this app and wrote some great instructions.

Doodle Buddy - This app is for altering an image or photo to

make it look funny and interesting.

Celeste liked how you could put cute stickers onto photos, Pat and Zacharie liked how you could draw an image and then use a sticker to change the image, Axelle enjoyed how she could get an image and smudge it with chalk and stickers, Andrew and Lucinda found out that the stickers could make a noise after you had applied them.

Next week, the children are going to share their expert knowledge about their app with other groups in the

class.

Story Cubes

This week as part of our literacy rotations we used an app called story cubes. To use the app you need to shake the I-pod. When you shake the I-pod it rolls the dice on the screen. The dice on the screen have different pictures on them. Once we rolled the dice we used the pictures to write a story.


Trista liked the app because she could see the pictures then write about them. Blake agrees with Trista and he liked the app because he could be creative and write a story.

Lauren liked the app because she got to shake the I-pod. Most apps that we use work by touching the screen but story cubes works in a different way.

Beau and Aiden both didn’t like the app because they thought they didn’t get to use the I-pod enough during our literacy rotation time.

This app has helped us with our writing because we have had to think of words to describe the pictures which were on the dice. This allowed us to practice our descriptive writing

History using iPods

This week using the iPods has been fun as we continued to explore the apps Strip Design and Storykit. We are using these apps to help us to write about the history of our local area.

We had 8 old pictures of Brisbane city from a long time ago to look at. In pairs, we selected two of the pictures and took photos of them with the iPods.

We then selected either Storykit or Strip Design and uploaded our photos from the camera roll on the iPods. Once we had our photos the way we wanted them on the screen, we then typed in our sentence about the photos. These sentences are what we call "because" sentence. They say what has changed from one photo to the other and why we think this change happened.

What we really liked about using these apps is that each of our work looked different, because there are so many choices we can make about things like the background, the font, the size of the photos and how we position our photos and text on the page.

Luke thought storykit was easier to use than strip design because he found it harder to know what to do when he used strip design.

Tahlia and Matina found it great that she could make different backgrounds in storykit. They used the storykit paint program to do a coloured background.

Andrew liked storykit better than strip design because when you logged onto strip design it is a bit confusing to know what to do.

Rory, Patrick and Finn liked strip design because they could add stamps and different stickers to the photos, a bit like making a comic strip.

Axelle liked storykit because the work you do is saved automatically into a section called bookshelf.

Lucy found it easy to delete any mistakes she made when she used storykit.

Hannah liked how in storykit you can create any kind of story you like.

Next week we will be using these apps to record our responses to other photos so our teacher can see how much we have learnt!

Character Descriptions

In Week 7, we re-visited 'Puppet Pals". Last time we used Puppet Pals we chose a character to write a limerick about. This time we chose a character so we could write a description of our chosen character. This activity was part of our Literacy Rotations.

First of all we had to choose a character and a backdrop. In our Literacy book we then wrote a description of what we could 'see'. After we completed our description we had to show it to an adult, to check it was okay. We then voice recorded our description and used our classroom speakers to listen to the descriptions we created.

Oscar discovered it was difficult to voice record when there was a lot of background noise.

Rebecca found this app easy to use because her Mum has Puppet Pals on her phone.

Jamee found the choice of characters were quite limited (you have to pay extra for more character choices). However, Jamee had fun writing her descriptions.

We have been trying to upload our video clips to our blog, but haven't had any luck. This is such a shame because we would like you all to listen to our wonderful creations. We are hoping to find out soon what we need to do differently to upload our clips successfully. We will keep you posted!!!

Elephant Bubloo - Take 2

Mrs Mead had a special job for us to do. Unfortunately, she doesn't get a chance to read all the wonderful books on the iPod touches. So, to help Mrs Mead become familiar with the story Elephant Bubloo, we completed the following steps.

1. We re-read Elephant Bubloo in groups of 3.

2. Each group chose 3 important parts of the story.

3. We took screen shots of each part of the story we chose.

4. We then used Sonic Pics.

5. We went to the photolibrary to find our saved photos.

6. In Sonic Pics we had to choose a title and a description.

7. We had to make sure the photos were in the correct order.

8. We had to decide who was going to voice record for each of the saved photos.

9. In our groups we each took turns to voice record our recount of the story Elephant Bubloo.

10. We were then able to play back our recordings to see if we had sequenced the story correctly.

Connor thought Sonic Pics was a great app because you can make lots of stories and add your own pictures or photos.

Brendan found it difficult to find the saved pictures at first but once he discovered they were saved in the photolibrary, he completed the activity successfully with his group.

We hope this gives Mrs Mead a bit of a 'blurb' about Elephant Bubloo.

Old School vs New School

This week in our literacy rotations we did the same activity twice. We did this to find out which way we liked doing the activity. We used books to find and write lists of nous, verbs and adjectives. We did the same activity using the I-pods but we used e-books instead.

Blake liked using the I-pods because the I-pod would read him the story and he could listen and write down his list of nous, verbs and adjectives.

Noah enjoyed the activity on the I-pods better because he had a choice of the I-pod reading the book to him or he could read it himself.

Trista and Laruen both liked when reading a book on the I-pod you wouldn’t miss a page.

Matt thought the activity was better when reading a book. Matt likes being able to turn the page himself and he thinks books are better for his eyes.

Ryan enjoyed using the books more than the I-pod because on the I-pod you have to search for a book and that is a waste of time.

Emma found using the I-pods hard because her i-pod was unreliable and thought it would be easier to use a book.

Discovering new apps

This week in 3B we were asked to explore two new apps - Storykit and Strip Design. Our teacher asked us to find out how to use each app and to think about how we could use them in our History unit.

Here are some things we discovered about Storykit.

- You can go to paint, camera or photo library.

- You can take photo and put them into a story book.

You can also go to the photo library and put them into a story book.

- You can write lots of stories.

- You can make collages out of pictures you have taken.

- You can type in text or you can record your voice.

- You can paint the background and then put typed text over the top

- You

have to make up your own story and you can write on the pictures you have drawn.

- You can change the size of the pictures.

Pat took a story about Alex and put a photo of him on the cover. Axelle liked how you could use any photo and write about that photo. Matina liked how she could take a photo and then draw over it with the paint tools.

Here are some things we discovered about Strip Design.

- You can take pictures and add details to them.

- You can add stickers to photos

- You can pick borders and backgrounds.

- You can select different layouts for your design.

- You can add text and then move it around the screen and make it bigger and smaller.

- When you take a photo you can take it in different modes, like 4 screen or fisheye.

Some of the class found this app to be a little bit hard to work out and had trouble taking pictures to add to the app.

Over the next few weeks, we will be using these apps to tell stories about the history of Mt Gravatt.

Grammar Dragon

This week in 3W we have investigated the app called Grammar Dragon. We had to decide what type of word the highlighted word was. For example "I went to the beach on the weekend." We had to decide what part of speech "beach" is. We would then find 'noun' listed down the side of the screen and drag the word into the fire. If it was correct we would get 10c dropped into a treasure bag. If our answer was wrong the fire would get brighter and everything else on the screen got darker.

Austin thought it was fun because we have been learning about the parts of speech.

Ryan said it got a bit boring after Level 2 even if the game was timed.

Rebecca found it was fun because you could choose your character to 'play', but the characters were limited. You only had a choice of 2 characters.

Lachlan thought it was good that after getting 5 answers correct in a row a gem would be dropped in the treasure bag.

Kayla liked the fact you could choose harder levels to challenge our learning.

How to Make GREAT Comments

Year 3, I notice you've been commenting on our blog posts for a while now.  Some of your comments are becoming very interesting.  It's great to see you putting more thought into comments.  It might be time for some good tips on how to make good comments into GREAT ones.

1.  "Opening Statement"

Your comment should refer to the post.  Pick one thing to make a sentence about.  Maybe something you agree or disagree with, something you like, or something you don't like.

2.  "Explanation"

Explain why you said this.  Give a reason.  Say what makes this something you like or dislike.  Explain why do you agree or disagree with this.

3.  "Concluding Statement"

Ask a question or make a suggestion.  Say, "I wonder...".  

Try to make your comments positive.  Even when you disagree with something you can do it in a positive way.  Give some encouragement whenever you can.

Here's an example:
I really liked hearing about the new app you are using this week. 
Reading a story on the iPods sounds like fun.  It would be helpful to hear the story read aloud to you as you follow the words.  A picture book can't do that but I still love picture books best I think.

I wonder if the pictures moved when you touched them.  Maybe you could make a list of the stories that you like to read on the iPods.

Could you pick the three different parts?

I can't wait to see some longer comments soon - with three parts - in which you do three things:

1.  Open

2.  Explain

3.  Conclude

Once you can write GREAT comments like this, you are already on the way to being great "essay" writers!

We Made a Martian Again

Last week in our literacy rotations 3S/Orange used the Make A Martian app in a different way. We worked in pairs and we had to listen to our partner who gave us instructions about how to make a martian. Some people found it easy and some people found it hard.

Alicia found it hard because it was tricky to understand the instructions her partner was giving her. Brooke agrees with Alicia and found it very tricky to follow her partner’s instructions.

Luca found it hard because it was noisy in the classroom and he couldn’t hear the instructions.

Lauren thought it was easy because her partner gave her great instructions to follow. Liam agrees with Lauren and found it easy because his partner’s instructions were very clear.

Matt enjoyed using Make A Martian this way because he could boss people around.

Elephant Bubloo (3W)

This week we had to read the story "Elephant Bubloo" which is in Books 2 on our ipods.

First of all we had to read the story. The parent helpers assisted us if we didn't know a word or the meaning of a word. The story included pictures and text and we turned the page by swiping our finger across the screen right to left.

After we finished reading the story we had to complete the worksheet seen here. We had to find as many adjectives, nouns and verbs in the text and complete the worksheet.

Kayla found it took a long time to find all the adjectives, nouns and verbs.

Austin thought it was fun because it helped him learn more about adjectives, nouns and verbs.

Oscar thought it was helpful because it will help him with his writing and he enjoyed reading the book.

Brendan discovered that on some pages of the story all the text didn't fit so he had to scroll up to read the rest of the text.

Jamee thought it was fun to find all the adjectives, because there were not many of them - she thought it was a bit of a challenge.

We discovered that reading some of the 'books' on the iPod touches could be lots of fun as well as learning more about the structure of a good text.

3F Reflections

Last term 3F worked on creating their own math's video ( you can see these in our previous post).

This week we have been reflecting on these videos and thinking about what we would do the same and what we would change.

Things we would keep the same.

Pat's group would use the camera app again.

Joshua's group would have the same people doing the same parts to help prepare the video.

Axelle's group would keep the same topic.

Rory thought that his group would still use Sonic pics.

Jack felt that his group would keep the same topic.

Things that we would change

Hannah thought that in her group, they would put more expression into their voices because they thought the voices sounded a bit boring. Axelle's group and Patrick's group feel the same about the voices in their videos.

Maia feels that her group would speak in lower voices because they didn't like how high their voice sounded.

Jacob's group and Joshua's group would take better pictures so that things they didn't need were not in the picture, such as feet and other objects. Jacob's group also discovered that it was better to take picture from the top looking down, than from the side.

Celeste's group would like to not be laughing so much when the voices are being recorded and to have better concentration.

Rory's group and Andrew's group would change the volume of their voices.

Zacharie would keep the images on the screen for longer while the group spoke about them.

Jack's group feel that they would hold the iPod closer to their mouths so that the sound was clearer.

We learnt that it is important to work together with our group members and that we have to co-operate to get the project done.

3F have learnt a lot about making videos using the iPod Touches and they are going to use what they have learnt to create Old Testament Bible stories this term.

Fun with Adjectives and Nouns

Glow Paint and Glow Free were two apps we used this week in 3W. We used these apps to learn more about adjectives. Mrs Walker gave us some nouns (names of people, places, animals and things) and we had to think of interesting adjectives to describe the nouns. Here are some examples of what we came up with.

Jamee liked "Glow Free" because after she started writing her word, it started to light up.

Oscar enjoyed using the "Glow Paint" and "Glow Free' because you could draw whatever you wanted. Also, you had the choice of lots of colours to make the words and pictures more interesting.

Andre particularly liked "Glow Free" because you had the choice of different modes of presentation. For example, he could mirror a word or drawing, and use different icons to add to drawings or words.

Kayla didn't like the fact you had to write your words very small and sometimes they didn't fit on the screen.

Connor found "Glow Free" frustrating because it was difficult to change between the different modes.

Austin found it a little difficult to take a screen shot because the top button was quite hard to push down.

Thank-you to 3S for letting us know about "Grammar Jammer" and "Grammar Dragon. We're hoping to use them next week.

Making A Martian

This week we used an app called Make a Martian. In this app we made our martian’s by clicking the touch screen buttons and changing the body parts of the martian.

Emma used small tiny legs on her Martian. Miggy chose to use spider legs for his Martian and Liam used chicken legs. Lauren had a crazy martian with only one eye ball. Nina added purple butterfly wings to her martian. Bri used bat wings rather than butterfly wings.

Most of 3S agree that Make a Martian is a great app because it is fun to play. However Blake thought the app was too easy and Luca didn’t like how you couldn’t change the background. Miggy and Nina both agree that using this app can help you be creative.

One important thing which some of us learnt was how to take a screen shot using the I-pod touches. Lots of people thought it was easy to take a screen shot. Some people found working the two buttons at the same time tricky.

I-pods this week

This week on the I-pods 3S had to find a game to help them learn about nouns, adjectives and verbs. We found two games to help us learn about grammar. The apps we found are Grammar Dragon and Grammar Jammers.

Grammar Dragon
In Grammar Dragon there is a sentence with a highlighted word in it. The player has to pick what type of word the highlighted word is.
•Josh and Trista both said it helped them learn the difference between nouns, adjectives and verbs.
•Peta liked the game because it told her what a noun, adjective and verb is.
•Luca didn’t like the game because he thought some of the sentences were to hard.
•Matt didn’t like how the game only gave him limited chances to get the word right.



Grammar Jammer
When you open up Grammar Jammer you can pick which type of word you want to learn about. If you pick noun it plays a funky song telling you what nouns are. After the song there are question to practice. In these questions you have to pick the word, which is the noun.
• Brooke enjoyed playing Grammar Jammer because it explains the different types of words and she liked the songs.
• Bri’s favourite part was the song because she liked listening to the music about the different types of words.
• Miranda and Liam both thought the game was to easy and that there should be easy and hard levels for people to play.

3F's Math's videos

This term, 3F have been working on creating video demonstrations using the iPod Touches. The aim of the videos was to help children to better understand an aspect of Maths. The children were encouraged to be creative and to keep their videos interesting. Next term we will revisit these videos to reflect on what the children like and what they might change next time they use the iPod Touches to create a video.

Here are our videos. ( also see our other video in the 3F video post below). We hope you enjoy them and appreciate the hard work the children have put into this project.

Months of the Year by year 3F

Creative Use of Apps in 3W

Wow!!! We have had an amazing time using some creative apps in our Literacy groups.

We began with Make a Martian and Comic Touch. All of us were surprised by how many different martians we could choose to create. This encouraged our creativity and allowed us to make some fun choices. We enjoyed the fact that our martian didn't have to look like anything that really exists. After we finished creating our martians we then used the Comic Touch app to add speech to our martian. The results were very funny. We all enjoyed using both these apps in our literacy rotations.

We were lucky enough to begin a unit on Poetry this term. We looked at Acrostic Poems, Limericks, Shape Poems, Cinquains and we have just started learning about Diamantes. We're now ready to take on the challenge of the Poetry Festival in Term 3.

We used two different apps to create poetry. First of all we used Puppet Pals to create a funny limerick. The fun part of using this app is that we were able to voice record our limerick onto the app and play it back. This was great because we could use the expression in our voice to enhance the limerick. We found we had to speak quite loudly into the iPod touch to make a clear recording. We are lucky enough to have discovered that we can hook our iPod touch to our speakers, so everyone can listen to our wonderful limericks.

TypeDrawing was the most recent app we have used. This was a perfect choice for the creation of our shape poems. In class, we created a variety of different shape poems, so we were pretty confident putting one together using TypeDrawing. First of all we had to decide on a topic for our shape poem. Once we had perfected it we were ready to use TypeDrawing. This app was really popular with all of us. We could type in the text, using a font of our choice and a font colour of our choice. Magically, our finger did the rest! All we had to do is draw the shape of what we had chosen as our topic and it magically appeared on the iPod screen in front of us. The words we had typed in for our poem created the outline of our drawing. This was lots of fun!!!

Amazing Work

This week year 3F have been busy making Math's videos to teach the other grades about different Math's concepts. Some of topics we are making our videos about are mapping, shapes, counting, groups of, months, adding and takeaway and times tables.

We have learnt that to make the videos exciting you have to make it look good and put some funny or interesting things in the videos. To make a good video you have to persuade the person watching it to keep watching it. It is also important to make sure our message is clear and easy to understand, otherwise we will just confuse people.

We discovered that sometimes we had to make more than one video to get it to look right. We have learnt that it is often a good idea to take photos from a bird's eye view, which means taking the photo when you are looking down on what you are taking the photo of. To make a video, we have learnt that it is important to make sure the image is in focus and clear, and to try not to move the iPod too much otherwise the video looks all shaky. You have to also make sure you are using the ipod at the right angle to take photos or video.

One of the reasons we are making our own math's videos is to give the children in other classes a way to learn about Maths other than just looking at the apps.

We have used a number of different creative apps to make our videos, including glow draw lite, sonic pics, camera, video and comic touch.

When we are finished, we will share our work with the other classes.

Moving into Literacy and Creating

Year 3W are looking forward to using the Literacy and Creating apps this term. We've had fun investigating what exciting apps we can use this term. We are looking forward to 'creating a martian'. We are looking forward to creating texts using StoryKit and Comic Touch. We've also discovered Puppet Pals, I Can Animate and Cut the Rope. We think Chicktionary looks like lots of fun and we can learn lots of words at the same time. 'Blanks looks as though it would be rather challenging.

We look forward to sharing our creations with you and improving our literacy skills at the same time. We will keep you posted!!!

Using Ipods in Literacy Rotations

This term 3S is going to be using the Ipods differently to last term. We will be using the Ipods in our literacy rotations rather than in science, religion and history.

This week in our literacy rotations we worked in groups of 6 and explored some of the different literacy apps on the Ipods. Here is what we think about some of the apps we explored:

Shapes
Shapes is an app where you have to guess the shape of an animal and put it together like a puzzle.
• Bri said that it was fun putting the puzzle together
• Miggy like the app because he could learn about the shape of animals
• Ryan didn’t like this app because he thought it was to easy and it was not challenging
Members of 3S thinks this app can help them learn new shapes and sizes of shapes.


Chicktionary
Chicktionary is an app where you are given letters and you have to make as many words with the letters as you can in the time limit.
• Peta said it was a fun app because you can spell out the words
• Sean liked the noises which the app made
• Bri thought that some of the words were to easy in the app
• Ryan on the other hand thought that some of the words were tricky
Chicktionary can help us to learn by showing the user different words and how to spell them.

Magnificent Maths

This term, 3F will be looking at different apps related to Mathematics. As well as playing some of the wonderful math’s apps that are on the iPod Touch, we will be making our own presentations to help other children in years 1, 2, 3 and maybe Prep, to learn about Maths.

To start this project, we wrote ideas for what math’s concepts we might like to use for our presentation. We will be working in small groups and we will need to work out what we want to teach and what apps we might use to make our presentation.

This week we looked at some of the Math’s apps and here are some that we liked.

Pat and lots of other year 3s liked Pop Maths because it helped him with their math’s skills and it was fun popping the balloons.

Maia, Rory and Jacob enjoyed Cut the Rope because you really have to think about what you do before you do it. It is good for problem solving.

Hannah, Meg, Emerson, Daniel and others really liked Dot to Dot because she had to use her counting skills to discover what the picture was going to be.

Kid’s Maths was an app that Celeste enjoyed because she thinks it will help her to learn her time tables and her math’s facts.

Alex explored the app StoryKit, which is a storytelling app that he might use for his presentation.

A Visitor from Europe

How exciting!  We've had our first visitor from Europe - did you see the little red dot on the map, high up in the middle?  The dot is in Poland.  Does anyone know anyone from Poland?  Is anyone traveling at the moment?  I'd love to find out more!  Please make a comment on this post if you can tell us anything about Poland.  For example:

• What's the weather like?
• What are some Polish foods?
• Can anyone find out what Poland's flag looks like?
• Is anyone from your family Polish?
• How did you know about Poland - tell us if you did any research.
• What countries are neighbours of Poland?  (check out the map below)

I wonder if anyone can use the iPod Touches to find out about Poland.  What app would you use?
Looking forward to learning more from you Year 3.

Mrs Mead

[map source:  http://www.backpackers.no/engelsk/]

Crazy about Comments!

Year 3, I have just LOVED reading all your comments this week.  Thinking back about what you have learned is a very important part of your actual learning.  This habit will make you more 'switched on' learners.  That's GREAT!  Good to see Mums and Dads helping out too.

This term we will working with some children on the Gold Coast who are also using iPod Touches in class.  You will each have a buddy class to share with.  Start thinking about what sort of things you would like to share with the children from St Francis Xavier at Runaway Bay...  (photos?  stories?  reflections?) What questions would you like to ask them?  What would you like to tell them about?

Our wonderful Parents and Friends Association have bought some more iPod Touches for St Catherine's students in other classes to use.  Now, you are our school iPod experts of course!  I imagine the other teachers and students will be needing your help and advice this term.  Be ready!

Mrs Maitland and Mrs Wilson visited us from two other Brisbane schools in the last week of term 1 to talk to some of you about how you are using the iPod Touches.  They were grateful for your advice, and very excited to see what you had to show them.  They have decided to buy some iPods for their own students to use!

I'm looking forward to sharing more learning with you this term. 
Mrs Mead

Fantastic Apps

This term in year 3F, we got to explore a number of different apps. Today we are going to share with you our Favourite apps.

Sonic Pics - Celeste liked sonic pics because she was able to record her voice.

Martian -William liked this app because he got to create his own Martian. Joshua and Noah liked being able to create their own weird Martians and then take screen shots of them. Jacob thought it was good because he could make the Martian see through or hairy. Patrick liked being able to make outstanding things. Daniel and Finn liked it because you could change the appearance of the Martian. Luke thought this app was good because he could add batwings to his Martian.

Comic Touch – Meg and Lucinda liked comic touch because you can make speech bubbles and you can smudge the image. Maia liked how you could make people’s faces look funny. Axelle liked how you could take a photo of anything and then add your own speech bubbles. Jack thought it was good because you can make your own characters and your own comics.

Epic Citadel –Andrew thought this was his favourite app because you can find cool places. Alex thought it is a nice, beautiful app and he took lots of screenshots ( photos) of the more beautiful scenes in the app. Zacharie liked how you could go over bridges, go in the water and visit the top of waterfalls. Hannah liked this app because it gave lovely views from the bridge. Rory liked Epic Citadel because he could explore the village and inside the churches and towers. Matina liked it because she could go in the waterfall and see pretty things. She also loved the towers. Lucy liked being able to travel through a nice town. Tahlia liked the views and the beautiful castle. Emerson enjoyed this app because you can walk in the water and knock on doors.

Puppet Pals – Simon enjoyed Puppet pals because he could change the size of the characters to make them bigger or smaller.

We also enjoyed using Storycubes and I Can Animate.

This term we have also learnt a lot about using iPod touches like:-

Use the iPod carefully

How to do screenshots to take photos of our work.

How to find the apps we are using.

To enjoy the apps and how to use them.

How to use the camera function to take photos.

We learnt how to use language better.

We have all really had fun with the iPod Touches this term and look forward to using new apps in term 2.

What We Can Do On The iPods!

In class we have been using Dragon Dictation, Sonic pics and Noah’s Ark stories as well as other apps to help us learn and have fun. We have been using the Ipods to learn things that we can't learn in books.


We used the iPods for science. We took photos of plants, living and non-living things. We added our photos to an app called Sonic Pics. Then added our voices and writing to make a plant photo journal.


In religion we used an app call Dragon Dictation. We can talk into Dragon Dictation and it puts our words into text. Dragon Dictation was used to record our thoughts about actions and consequences.


On the Ipods we looked at two different Noah's Ark stories. Each iPod group shared with the class what features they liked about each story. One story read the text to use and the other Noah's Ark story had interactive pictures and text.


We love using the iPods to have fun and learn because they are awesome and educational.

Thanks 7P

Thanks Mrs Peasey and 7P for showing so much interest in our Year 3 blog. We have been using the iPod touches in our Numeracy rotations for about five weeks now. We always look forward to having our turn. We usually use apps that are either connected to the Maths concepts we are learning in class or help us practise our numeration techniques. This means we get to work on apps that help us become more accurate with our basic facts like addition and subtraction. We have used a variety of apps over the 5 weeks. These are a few we have used and enjoyed:

• Clockmaster


• PopMaths


• Apples


• Comp Carl


• Shapes Lite


• Tangrams


• Sums

These apps are easy and fun to use. The children in 3W enjoy using the iPod touches because we are 'learning and having fun at the same time'. Some of the apps present a real challenge because you progrees through different levels.

Hopefully you will keep up-to-date with our blog so you can all see the amazing benefits of using iPod touches in the classroom.

Awesome apps

This week 3F used two news apps in our language group time. These were Epic Citadel and Sonic Pics. Epic Citadel is an app where you get to explore a medieval castle and the area surrounding it. Sonic Pics lets you record your voice behind the photos you take with a screenshot. Here is what the class thought about these apps and what they learnt when they used them.

Hannah and Maia liked how in Epic Citadel they were able to go in the water. Rory discovered how you could jump out the water.

Meg, Andrew, Joshua, Axelle and William found out that in Epic Citadel you can knock on a door by tapping on the screen, but the door still didn't open.

Alex and Zach found out that my using the two circles on the screen, one could be used to turn the angle of the camera around and the other one moved you along without touching the screen.

Luke and Celeste used screen shots from Epic Citadel in Sonic pics to record their descriptions about the photos.

Lucy and Matina found a circus outside the Castle grounds in Epic Citadel. Tahlia, Jack and Noah found out how to go inside the circus tents.

Patrick thought Epic Citadel was the most beautiful, medieval land he has seen.

Daniel found a statue in the castle.

Next week we are not learning about any new apps. We are instead going to create descriptions either in comic touch or Sonic pics about our favourite apps we have used this term.

Comments from 7P

Hi there Year 3,


I've been telling the year 7s about your blog.  Mrs Peasey's class has their own blog here:

http://kidblog.org/MrsPeaseysClass/

[Teachers if you want to take a look, you can select the parent login and use the surname of our favourite South African as the password.]
The year 7s have been visiting your Podwise blog, to see what sort of things you have been doing with the iPods and some of them had some comments for you:

From Mrs Peasey:

"Year 3, it looks like you are doing some exciting things with your iPod Touches. What do you most enjoy about using the iPods?"

From Sarina K:

"Hi That is sooo cool.I was just wondering what program(s) you are using.  Thanks,Sarina

By the way you all look so cute in those pictures."

From Jade S:

"hello year 3,
Do you like working on the ipods and why ?????
Do you like playing the programs????
and as Sarina said really cute pictures !!
thanks jade"

Looks like lots of people are interested in what you are doing, year 3!
Keep up your great efforts.

Our Favourite Apps

The children in Year 3W have been using the iPod touches in their numeracy groups. They all have different opinions about their favourite Apps. 


Serge liked Shape Lite because you got to make all different 2-D shapes. It was amazing to see what objects could be made by using all the shapes. Rebecca liked Shape Lite because it made a funny sound when you finished the puzzle.

Angus, Kayla and Flynn really liked Pop Maths. Kayla liked Pop Maths because she got up to level 54. Angus found it a challenge and it helped him with his sums and Flynn said it helped him learn.

Dante liked Clockmaster because this app helped him to learn o'clock, half past and quarter past and quarter to the hour.

Lara liked Apples because it was another app that helped the children learn how to tell the time.

Sums was Ella's favourite app because it helped me with my sums. I had to be really careful to write the numbers correctly or else it would be marked wrong.

Lara K liked Comp Carl because it was lots of fun because you had to drag the robot to the battery and you had to get the answers to the sums correct first.

We are looking forward to trying out some new apps this week. We have found the apps challenging, fun, interesting and we have learned many new things.

Amazing apps

3F used 3 different apps this week. We used I can animate, Puppet pals and Storycube. Here is what some of the children learnt and discovered this week.

Jacob says that on Puppet Pals he learnt how to turn characters upside down.

Maia found out that she could change the backgrounds in Puppet Pals by pulling down on the bell cords.

In Storycubes, Hannah and Joshua found out that if she put two fingers onto a cube, she could move it around the screen.

Zacharie and Daniel learnt how to make characters in Puppet Pals different sizes.

Rory discovered that you can buy more characters to play with on Puppet Pals ( though he didn't buy anything).

On Puppet Pals, Alex found out how to look at movies that other people have created.

Lucy learnt how to record her voice into Puppet Pals.

Jack learnt how to use a toy to make an animation in I Can Animate.

In I can animate, Matina discovered that she could turn the iPod and that it turned around the image on the screen too.

Tahlia discovered how to turn the characters to face different ways on Puppet pals.

We then started thinking about how we could use these apps in different subject areas. We thought we could use I Can Animate to make movies for science, like how a plant grows. Another idea is that we could use Puppet Pals to make a story with a message. With Storycubes, you could get great ideas for writing stories in class.

Next week we are using an app called Epic Citadel and then learning how to use Sonic Pics.

Come back next week to find out how we went.

Ipod Touch comics

This week in 3F, we were using the Comic Touch app to add speech bubbles and text to our Martian images. This taught us how to add text (words) into the speech bubbles. We also learnt how to correct our spelling if we spelt a word wrong. If we spelt a word wrong a red line would appear under the word and if we tapped on the mis-spelt word, we were given choices of how the word could be spelt.

Noah discovered how we could turn the point on a speech bubble around so that it could face in any direction. He was able to show other people how to do this. Hannah discovered that she could make the point on the speech bubble longer or shorter.

Luke thinks that learning how to put text into speech bubbles is a way of helping the class to learn how to write text messages.

It was great to see some of the parents using the iPods in the classroom. Some of the children were able to teach a few of the parents how to use the Comic touch app so they could make their own comic.

Next week we are going to use 3 different apps on the iPod touch. We are going to use the I can animate app, story cube and Puppet pals. On story cube we have to shake the ipod and tell a story with the cubes on the screen. The cubes move and sound just like real dice. With I can animate, we have to take a series of pictures which will be turned into a little animated story. Puppet Pals allows you to pick your own characters and backdrops to tell a cowboy story. Once we have put our characters onto a backdrop, we can then record our voice to tell the story. Alex said that he has seen Puppet Pals on the iPad in the library.

We are feeling excited to try these new apps next week in our Language groups. We all think that using the iPod Touches is lots of fun.

Here are some of the comics the children created using Comic Touch

iPods in 3W

The first week of iPod Touches was extremely exciting in 3W.

We have used a few apps already:

1. Apples - we used this to explore telling time.
   
2. Pop Maths - working on numeration with addition and subtraction.
3. Camera - we looked for 2D and 3D shapes in our environment and took photos of them to share with others. This is important learning - being able to apply mathematical understandings to the real world.
   

In our learning journals, we are making comments about how the iPods are challenging us in our learning while we are having fun. We write in our learning journals every week about our iPod activities.

It was so exciting for the children to be "let loose" outside during their shape search. For Mrs Walker the shape activity was also a great assessment tool. It was really easy to pinpoint those who can grasp the difference between 2D and 3D shapes, from observing and listening to the children's discussions while they took their photos.



Why not talk with your parents about these shapes and their features.
What 3D shapes do you think these are? Why do you think this?
It's the conversations and critical reflection that make these activities so valuable. Here's a good debate that occurred during this lesson:
Is the bell at the top of the church tower a ... cylinder? Or not? Why?

Mrs Mead's Martian

Year 3, I had a go at making a Martian too.  I wish I could keep him at my house.  How would you describe his features?

Our Blog Visitors

Year 3, did you see your "Cluster Map" this week?  The map shows where our blog's visitors are coming from.  We have already had more than 10 visitors from Brisbane, but did you notice something else?  There are some other red spots on the map this week.  Can you see what countries the spots are in?  [They are very tiny but if you click the little map on our blog it will open much larger.] 

We have had visitors from elsewhere in Australia too.  Perhaps you can use your atlases to work out where our visitors are coming from.

How exciting!