Mario Kart with year 5 (linked to ww2 topic)

Mario Kart with year 5

We used Mario Kart as a tool to inspire creative writing and to improve the quality of content in the children's writing. This project was also used to develop group discussion and interaction and speaking and listening skills.We began by playing mario kart and making notes on the different settings. Children wrote a simple mind map with ideas for each race. We then chose simple nouns from the settings, e.g. 'cows' and created more detailed descriptions based on a particular race and setting the children chose, e.g. 'In this wonder of a barnyard, where milking cows is what we do best, grassy fields and beautiful flowers surround us in the land of Moo Moo Meadows'.

We displayed these short descriptions around the classroom to provide children with ideas for further writing. Once we had shared the descriptions and made improvements to our own and peers, it was our chance to design our own Mario Kart Race. We had been studying world war two for the term and the children had learnt a lot and were so interested in the topic. We had created role play areas, produced some writing based on 'The Blitz' and made Air Raid shelters for our DT project. We also visited Duxford Air Museum and dressed up as evacuees. Therefore, the children had lots of ideas and were very eager to begin this project. We had another look at Mario Kart to analyse the tracks and obstacles along the way and the children wrote down a list of things they would like to include in their own race. We talked about alliteration and word play and how we would include the Mario characters within our race, e.g. Bowser's Blitz, Peach's Ration Zone, Luigi's Evacuation Station, Toad's Aircraft.  

Once we had discussed these things, the children worked with a mixed ability partner to design their track. They drew and labelled their tracks and included word play and alliteration. Once the designs had been made, they decided on a character to race and what their kart would be like.

The next stage was to create a short presentation to the class of their race. They children had to talk the class through their race in an interesting way, describe the obstacles and show how the race is completed. Once the presentations were completed, the children swapped races and wrote reports on each other's stating the good points and possible points for improvement.

Because it was linked to a topic much enjoyed by the children, they were very inspired with lots of ideas and this supported them during the designing process and ultimately the presentation.

Endless Ocean with Year 1

I used this firm favourite with my group of lower ability Year 1s to write a short story about a day they went diving in the coral. We planned a beginning, middle and end, using the Wii to discuss how our dive would start, what we would do in the dive (or see) and how we would end the dive. This was the first time they had used this game, as a part of our ocean topic.   

This is by my reluctant writer. He finds the Wii motivating, I'll leave it on while he writes so he can refer to it.

This writer started to extend her sentences during this piece of writing, so much she saw!

This child finds writing difficult but was positive about this piece of work, wanting to write about all she saw in the game.

This writer has added in the description I was looking for. The wii gave her lots of ideas but she has added in her own (the crab).

Once again, I have found the Wii particulalry helps the children who find writing difficult to put pencil to paper.

Jumping forwards. And backwards.

This post will be about my plans to incorporate gaming stimuli in the near future. Our school IT infrastructure is going through a major upgrade, hopefully resulting in a stable and capable network. Woohoo!

At the turn of the year I applied, and got into a trial run by Valve software .

They are rolling out a pilot program that was started in the USA last year, involving their multi award winning game Portal 2

 

 learning with Portals has a fair science, creative thinking and mathematical focus, however, there have been some fascinating projects run through it, using the game as a starting canvas for narrative writing.

The educational package delivers the game, and a full level creator/editor (all for free)
The game itself offers a limited narrative, and simply exposes the user to a first-person perspective environment, with a series of open ended challenges. All of which have to be solved by creating Portals - in through blue: out through orange. The player character is confined to a mysterious laboratory environment.

Teachers from across the pond have been designing simple introductory levels, deliberately blank to stimulate children in to inventing their own plot, and characters. 
The game does require a semi decent i3 or i5 processor, and fortunately a few of our newer desktops in the ICT suite are capable of running it. It is worth noting the original Portal game runs fine on my not-so-decent dual core laptop.

As out infrastructure solidifies, I shall share the planning and progress through this project. The game itself is well known, and I shall have to work to strip the game narrative from a few children's minds - but that is no different than the way many of us have been approaching games through the Wii project.

Endless Ocean with Year 6

My colleague has thought about borrowing the Wii for a while now, and this week she did,  to help chidlren write an encylopedic page about coral reef, for a part of their Oceans topic.

First in a Geography lesson the children wrote notes about the different plants and fish (you press A when pointing to a feature and you are given facts). My colleague said this was so successful they continued longer than she planned.
This Year 6 is the class I had in Year 4, so they were used to the Wii, but she commented on how well they shared the console, and supported those not used to using it.
In their English lesson that followed the children wrote up their notes, having to think about features of the genre and sentence structure.
These are photos of their work they acheived in the two lessons.

 

My colleague was impressed with the motivation of the children and how much work was achieved in the 2 lessons. Everyone was writing all the time, she said.

African Safari with Year 1/more able Year R

A firm favourite now, I had this game in the Wii console throughout my half term topic on Dinosaurs. I found I popped it on quickly to look at the landscape and how to walk through 'Dinosaur Land' safely.
The children wrote:

1. Orders of how to stay away from the animals (dinosaurs). If you approach the giraffes at the beginning of the game they become agitated. Children came up with orders such as 'do not touch', 'stay away', do not feed', walk quietly' etc. That was a quick but productive lesson, with children noting orders on whiteboards.
2. Description of a dinosaur landscape: Building upon previous work with the Wii on adjectives, the children wrote a description of a walk through the dinosaur landscape. Their first task was to think of several adjectives to describe various features, including landscapes they had seen in books. This led to a piece of description about what they saw on a walk through the landscape eg. I saw a fast river. I walked past the grey rock.  

Advantages of using the Wii? It added a sense of realism to a History topic that is often taught with plenty of books and cartoons to get a sense of what it was like. The children knew it wasn't dinosaur land, but got a sense of how exciting it would be if it was. My reluctant writer was not reluctant during these sessions. All chidlren wrote regardless of ability (I have the less able Year 1s).