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.