As part of our focus on E-safety this week, some of the children in Years 4,5 and 6 wrote their own radio scripts to promote staying safe online. We did have a few technical issues, but eventually our show was broadcast to the rest of the school. If you missed it, would like to listen again or are looking for e-safety tips give it a listen by downloading the show from the link below.
Not only has Rachel explained to her Dad about staying safe online, she has also completed these colourful advice posters. Great job Rachel. Hopefully others will magpie some of your ideas. We have been working very hard across school today to raise our awareness of staying safe online.Year 5, have spent a large part of their lessons today making sure they know how to stay safe on the internet including: - sharing ideas in assembly. - fnding and reading posters around school. - esafety themed literacy. - watching Safer Internet Day TV. - creating our own e-safety interactive quiz games. Below are the ideas Years 3, 4, 5 and 6 had about staying safe online. This was a great way to start our day, showing we already had a good level of understanding. Children in Years 4 & 5 finding and reading e-safety posters around school. How many can you find? In our literacy lesson we created e-safety stories using scenario cards. We had to choose a character, location, device and emotion and then write a short educational story about being safe online under our chosen circumstances. Here is a small selection of our stories. What messages can we learn from them? At lunchtime, some of us gave up a few moments of our own time to add extra ideas to those we had in our morning assembly. In the final part of our day, we created our own e-safety games using Tiny Tap. We then challenged each other by playing the games and putting what we had learned throughout the day to the test. Have you seen any of these? You know you have discovered an excellent App when, after only a few moments after installing, you find yourself mulling over it's many possibilities within the classroom. 'Tiny Tap' is one such App where quite quickly it's great potential becomes apparent. Add to that it's completely Free, without annoying pop ups or adverts, and it's a winner! In short, the application allows you to create your own games which you tap to play. These can be shared with the Tiny Tap community and similarly, you will have access to hundreds (if not more) of games and activities created by others. Below is a quick over view of Tiny Tap and some examples showing its use and potential. From the main screen you will be presented with a book shelf that allows you to: - create your own activity. - play activities already in your library. - or visit the market place. As you can see, this is all presented in a colourful and child friendly way. You don't need to be an expert to make instant use of Tiny Tap. By visiting the market place, you will have ready access to a large number of pre-created activities. I had fully expected this to be the 'catch' with the App, anticipating a large number of activities with a price. However, refreshingly, this isn't the case and the majority of games or activities are free as they have been created by the community of Tiny Tap users. Simply search for what you are hoping to find, see something you like, tap to download and away you go. Simple and effective. One of the doors that Tiny Tap opens is the ability to be able to create your own activity suited exactly to the needs of the children in your class. Instead if trawling the internet looking for a game or activity that almost fits the requirements, you can quickly create an activity that does exactly what you need it too. No need to make do with a slightly too easy / challenging alternative. No need to choose one that isn't quite the skill you are trying to look at. Creating an activity. As you can see from the photo below, you can draw whatever you need using a range of tools, add photos from your camera roll or add pictures from a wide range of themes already built into the app. One your backgrounds are set (be it your own design, a photo, text or a combination of them all) you can then Set up your activity. This included: - Recording your own question or instruction followed by choosing the correct answer / area on the screen by drawing around it with your finger. Responses for current / incorrect choices can also be recorded. (Some examples being can you find the word with and 'igh' sound? Can you find cat? What is 35 x 100 and so on? Click in the verb in this sentence... And so on. - Cutting out and area which then has to matches to its place on the screen. Again there is plenty of potential such as competing spellings, dragging answers to a maths question to the correct number sentence, balancing equations etc Below is a video from Tiny Tap showing how quickly an activity can be set up: I'm sure there is almost endless potential for the number of activity types that can be created but to serve the purpose of an example, here are some ways in which I have used the App: Pre-School Activity Example: As with many discoveries, the first port of call in investigating Tiny Tap was at home. Downloading it for the first time at the weekend, and not having a class to try my ideas out on, meant my 3 year old became the guinea pig. In the short video, you can see the simplicity but effective nature of Tiny Tap where the correct word has to be found based on the oral instruction. There are also a large number of simple activities available on the marketplace suitable for younger children. And the colorful nature of the in built resources, make this a great app for EYFS and KS1 children. Similarly, Tiny Tap was also used to create quick SPAG games in Year 5&6, where children created 'silly sentences' and then used the App to record their own questions putting their knowledge to the test including: Children created questions asking to find the article, adjective, noun, verb, adverb, preposition etc. In Year 5, we used Tiny Tap to create our own numeracy games as a quick revision tool. As part of keeping equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages fresh in our minds, we all designed our own game card. These were then photographed and added to Tiny Tap before recording our questions such as: 'What is equivalent to three quarters?' 'What is the same as 100%' and so forth. The children thoroughly enjoyed this and were hooked in knowing they were making their own game but had to think carefully whilst setting their questions, drawing on their own knowledge of equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages. The children then swapped their iPads and played each other's games, further testing their understanding. The game creation also served as an assessment activity for myself as I was able to observe the extent to which children felt comfortable in pushing their understanding whilst creating their games. For example most children stuck to the safety of working with tenths in their comparison to decimals and percentages. However it was interesting to see who included improper fractions, equivalents to tenths, quarters and so on. Some setting their fractions as 100ths and 1000ths and asking for the decimal or percentage equivalents. Below are some photos of the children making and testing their activities. As part of 'Safer Internet Day' children in Year 5 and 6 used the application to create their own Safer Internet Quiz activities. This was a great way for them to reinforce the themes of the day! Below are just some examples. |