During the week, beginning 21.10.13, the class used an iPad game as a stimulus for their ideas and writing. Below is an outline of the week and how the game was used to generate ideas which were later used in a longer piece of written work.
Many of the ideas can be seen in the mind map below which was created at the lesson planning stage using the iPad app 'Popplet'.
In the first lesson the children took a virtual trip to a theme park using the computer game 'Theme Park'. They briefly explored the park, looking at the rides and attractions before taking screen grabs of those they found the most interesting.
Following this, the children were tasked with creating a poster showing what the park was like and the attractions they liked to most.
Day 2:
The children then used the ideas from their poster and virtual visit to create an advert suitable for television.
To do this they:
- Saved themepark images from the internet using 'Safari'
- Edited images, adding their own faces using 'PicCollage'
- Used the photo and video functions of the iPad's camera.
- Used 'iMovie' to create their final advert.
Here is just one example of the many created:
http://5tanfieldlea.weebly.com/1/post/2013/10/drew-theme-park-trailer.html
Their work was added to the blog, with a link added to their literacy books (including a QR code which can be scanned as a direct link)
Day 3
Today we focused on writing the best sentences we could using the ideas we had formed about the theme park.
At first the children created simple sentences, which they then assessed themselves using a scoring sheet. The children then tried to develop their sentences using their understanding of what would make a stronger setence. Their final sentences were again self assessed, giving the children an understanding of exactly how much they had improved their original ideas and hopefully how they could continue to do so in the next lesson.
Day 4
In the final lesson, we pulled all our ideas together to write a written recount of our day at the theme park. The children were encouraged to refer to their scoring sheets from the previous lesson and to try to maintain this standard in their final piece of writing.
For more ideas, some of which have been used here, visit the following blog post:
http://mrparkinsonict.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/simulation-games-school-trip-without.html