Lego Education WeDo 2.0 START

Programming/Coding has come to Lego! Well it's always been there hasn't it really: Following a set of pretty unambiguous instructions to create a model but with Lego Wedo you can make your Lego come to life without touching it! This app is designed for Lego Wedo sets so you can't just download it and start making your Death Star roll about like a Sphero! WeDo 2.0 sets cost around £110 and with that you'll get all the Lego you'll need as well a motor, sensors and a control unit operated by 2 AA batteries (no usb connection) and it's controlled by Bluetooth 4. You can even control it with Scratch! (Haven't tried this yet)The app itself is free and basically is an instruction manual with lots of different designs that your students can make. Rather than just giving you a car to build Lego Education have given the student different scenarios that make great links with different areas of the curriculum. They're going to be looking at earthquakes by making a house testing rig to see which design can survive a series in earthquakes which increase in intensity. They might want to imagine travelling to Mars or into the depths of a volcanoe by making and programming a rover robot.After the standardly easy to follow Lego instructions you are shown examples of block coding  for the student to copy. They do this simply by dragging and dropping colourful jigsaw like blocks of code. This is one of the best features of the app. It gets the children programming and seeing what they have made come to life straight away. The majority of my infants don't initially understand the coding blocks but as their rover comes to life they quickly see what each block of code is doing. From here they can quickly be extended to make their rover not only stop when its sensor is activated but reverse away from whatever has been detected.Children in my code club and class have had lots of fun and have really enjoyed creatively adapting what they have made.Connection with Bluetooth has been very easy but we have had issues recently when working with other schools! When working with 10 sets it seems like tablets and devices can get confused. When working with my school's three sets with iPads however we have never had any issues.Sets come with handy labelled trays that keeps all your Lego highly organised. Once projects have been completed you will need to allow time for children to get Lego back to the right sections. To be honest my infants have struggled with this part!When using these sets I'd recommend separate tables for each tray as you really don't want the headache of search around your trays fir that flat yellow 2 by 4 piece.I've downloaded the START version of the app as this takes up a hec of a lot less space on my iPads compared to the full version. As the student get through the models in the START version I'll download the FULL version. Both are free.Lego education have really spent some time developing this app as there are also section for adding photos of what you have made and adding text to you code to explain the process. A nice touch but one I am yet to try. Buy yourself a set and get building. Do check before hand that your iPad, laptop, desktop or android tablet is compatible. I believe you can find this out on the Lego website.Mr B

Maths Primary

Maths primary is an app I've been looking for for awhile. I wanted an app I could come back to time and time again that I knew would help across the whole maths curriculum. I wanted a simple and clear app that the children could easily access and indepently use. Maths primary is it.

This app reads out most of the questions which is really helpful and even comes with an extremely positive teacher: "You're making excellent progress!"

You can toggled between different curriculums in the UK and even features the new 2014 curriculum for England.

Each child can have their own username which enables you to see how they are progressing.

You can easily see how a student is doing in each area and the children are encourage with the awarding of bronze, silver and gold stars.

This is one of those apps I keep seeing the children on so clearly they are enjoying it!

i-nigma

I love QR (Quick Response) codes. They can be used in great ways to get children to web sites quickly and easily which helps keep them engaged rather then having to remind them how to spell the /oo/ sound in Google.What is a QR code some of you may say. It's basically a 2D bar code that can be linked to web addresses. It can also be linked to text, emails and even phone numbers if you want.There are a host of apps that can zap QR codes that are either cheap or free. I-nigma is one I heard good reviews about a year ago and since then even the lower ability children in my class can use it independently. They don't need to tap anything once the app is open just point it in the vague direction of the QR code and a "bing" will signify that the code has been zapped.So you have the app to read them but how do you generate them? I've used www.qrstuff.com which creates the QR code in any colour you desire and of course it's free.I've used QR codes in many different lessons inside and outside. They are great for researching activities where you'd like the children to watch suitable videos online that you have already found and checked.I've also used them in a airport Role Play area where the QR codes were on different boarding passes and once scanned took the children to the location on Google Maps. From there they compared the country on the iPad to an actual REAL world map and used an rescaled metre stick to measure how many miles they they needed to fly. They also chose the type of aircraft that would be best for their journey. As you can imagine the children enjoyed acting check-in staff and didn't realise, until I pointed out to them, the range of skills they were using.

We used QR codes outside too (our wi-if just reached). The QR could sent children to different google maps that showed a continent. The children then labelled their own paper maps by comparing their map to the image on the iPad. Great as well as the current UK curriculum requires children to use aerial photos as well as maps.

 

 

 

 

 

 

ChatterPix Kids

ChatterPix Kids from Duck Duck Moose is an amusing little app that simply adds speech to photos but with the extra excitement of a moving mouth.

What the children enjoyed about this app was that it was simple to use and just very funny. Seeing characters from books come to life with the children's own voices helped children share what they thought about the characters and also informed me on the children's understanding of the book. Once they had photographed a picture image or chosen one from the camera roll they drew where they want the mouth to be.

This obviously could be used across the curriculum. Why not get Henry VIII to introduce your Tudors topic instead of the children listening to teacher! For a recent topic about Explorers instead of me telling the children about them Neil Armstrong spoke to them from his Lunar Module! The file was quite big so I couldn't email it but easily uploaded it to YouTube instead. Check it out here.

Video made in this app can be easily export to the camera role.

As you can see from the photo "stickers" and text can be added to images. This adds another element of fun to it and also a whole wealth of reading activities. If text is applied to the picture all children need to do is add the voice.

Twinkl Phonics Suite

 

 

 

 

 

Twinkl Phonics Suite is a fantastic app to help children with their phonics. It uses fun games that focus on specific sounds.This engaging app is directly linked with the DfES Letters and Sounds programme with it being split into the separate 5 phases. A game that I like to use among a carousel on activities is the classic "Buried Treasure". Again, a specific sound can be chosen which will be used in real and nonsense words. The children need to read these words and sort them one by one by dragging them into a bin or a treasure chest! My kids love it and use it really well in pairs by taking in turns. Also what a great way to prep them for understanding what nonsenses word are. Probably the most important thing they learn in Year 1 with the dreaded Phonic Screening looming!!What's also great about this app, in comparison to other apps like those from Mr Thorne, is that is uses sounds that the children have already learnt in words. For example if children are playing games with the sound "ee" in them it wont give them the word "deeper" as the children wouldn't have come to the "er" sound yet. Simple but I've found it so frustrating when your children finally not only know the sound but have read it correctly in a word but then can't move forward because some other sound comes along that they aren't going to learn until next term!This app also includes the following:
- The sounds and names of each letter of the alphabet- Letter formation- Blending sounds in CVC words- The graphemes taught in phases 2-3 (including digraphs and trigraphs)- Initial and final blends- Alternative spellings for phonemes- High frequency and tricky words for each phase.You can buy the separate phases for £2.49 but I'd advise you just get the whole Suite of the 5 phases for £4.99 which if is used in phonics sessions regularly is definitely worth it.What I love about this app is that it's been designed to be used in the classroom and not for the more lucrative parenting market!

Puppet Pals HD

With Puppet Pals HD you can produce stories with characters in front of different backgrounds.

Puppet Pals HD is a really accessible way for children to produce plays of any sort. This is easily done by dragging a host of characters around the screen. Whilst moving the characters from here to there the children can recorded their voices to tell their imaginative stories.

This app is set on a stage with backdrops that can be pull down with a simple click of the cord. As shown below, there are lots of themes that can be bought at a small cost or you can get them all with the Director's pass. If you do the maths it's a no brainer!

Director's Pass£1.99

Christmas£0.69

On the Farm£0.69

Monsters£0.69

Zombie Attack£0.69

Political Par-tay£0.69

Arthropod Armada£0.69

Space£0.69

Pirates£0.69

Talk Shows £0.69

I have saved the best till last. Once you've purchased the director's pass you can add your own photos of characters and backdrops by using the camera or importing any image from your camera roll! This means the children can be as creative as they wish!As you can hopefully imagine this app can be used really well across the curriculum and not only to create fairytales. One child in my class created an amusing play about saving water adding herself and other children into it and a bathroom from google images! She even quickly scribble out some blue water took a photo and added that as a character as well. I've chosen this as my first post as the children just love using it. This app gets a lot of usage and is certainly worth the £1.99 the school spent on it to upgrade to the director's pass.