Scotland’s entry to Schoolovision 2012

 Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Term 4, video  1 Response »
May 152012
 


Our 2012 entry to Schoolovision is now on the blog, ahead of Friday’s deadline, when all 39 countries’ songs need to be there. With entries from as far north west as Iceland, right down to Azerbaijan in the south east, we have already seen that the standard for this year’s contest is probably the highest yet! By Friday, we should have entries from new members Luxembourg, Georgia, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as Azerbaijan and Bosnia & Herzegovina’s which was the very first song uploaded last month.

We all enjoyed watching our entry this morning, and we should thank Castlesound studios in Pencaitland for allowing us to use their venue, as well as Gavin Tully-Jackson from Haddington who filmed the song for us. Thanks too to Miss Traill, who worked very hard to ensure that we sang fantastically at the recording studios! How will we fare against 38 other countries? We’ll find out next Friday, 25th May!

 Posted by Michael at 2:27 pm

Sport Relief Whole School Walk

 ICT, term 3  3 Responses »
Mar 232012
 

Heading into Yester Estate.


A lovely morning in the park.


Walking through the woods next to the Bleachfield.

The whole school walked more than a mile this morning, in aid of Sport Relief. We set off from the playground, headed down towards the Bleachfield, turned into Yester Estate, carried on up towards the house, came back down the road and walked around the perimeter of the Bleachfield and through the woods, before coming back up towards the school.

Back in class, we used the mapping website Map My Run and the laptops to establish that our mile long walk had actually been a walk of 1.61 miles in total! Well done everyone, and thank you to the various parents who came along and supported us along the way.

 Posted by Michael at 12:24 pm

Money through Maths and ICT

 Collaborative work, ICT, Maths, term 3  2 Responses »
Mar 092012
 

Choosing where to stay…

Deciding which type of car might be best to rent…

Working out how much money will be left!

Our task in ICT this morning was to budget for a family holiday to anywhere in Europe. This gave the class lots of scope to go wherever they wanted to, using either Ryanair or Easyjet as the flight carriers. We had learned the basics about how to book flights, accommodation and car hire last week in Money Week, when the class were asked to budget for a holiday to Finland, so this represented a leap forward in terms of allowing each pair to actually explore and decide what appealed most to them.

The budget was £3000, which included flights for a family of four, accommodation in the country you cose to fly to and car hire, as well as considering how much money would be needed for the duration of the holiday as spending money. At the end, we shared our plans with each other, and heard of some tremendously diverse and creative ideas in which to spend (or not spend!) all of the available budget!

 Posted by Michael at 1:25 pm

Webcam conference with Dundee University

 Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, term 3  No Responses »
Feb 272012
 


On Friday, some of the P5/6 class were invited by Dundee University to make a presentation about the work connected to International Education we have done here at Yester Primary, to B.ED students, who are learning to be teachers.

This was a very interesting 45 minutes, so thanks to those who participated in it! We told the student teachers about some of the projects we have undertaken, and how to create links with classes in other countries, before the meeting finished with the students from Dundee singing their own version of the Proclaimers’ song, I’m Gonna Be (500 miles), which we then repeated from our end! Let’s hope they follow us when we sing our song for Schoolovision soon!

 Posted by Michael at 1:15 pm

Viking Powerpoints

 Collaborative work, ICT, term 3  No Responses »
Feb 072012
 

Creating Viking Powerpoints

Yesterday, as part of our project on Sweden, we learned a bit about the Swedish vikings. Today, as a follow up in ICT, we have been researching the Swedish vikings ourselves, and creating our own viking powerpoints.

 Posted by Michael at 3:20 pm

Our 2012 European Chain Reaction entry!

 Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Science, term 3  1 Response »
Jan 032012
 

Here is our entry for the 2012 version of The European Chain Reaction. It took us quite a bit of time to plan and put it together, and each and everyone in the class took part and collaborated to help make it happen.
We now need to wait and watch all the other entries from across Europe appear- they need to be uploaded to the blog by Friday 13th January. Then, once everyone has watched all the entries and voted for their favourites, the winning country will be announced on Friday 27th January.

 Posted by Michael at 5:10 pm

Chain Reaction 2012

 Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Science, Term 2  No Responses »
Dec 162011
 

Having won the school around £1000 in ICT software a couple of weeks ago, our Chain Reaction for 2012 is nearly complete! Many weeks ago now, we filmed the majority of our technical chain reaction, and we will complete it next week, by using our lift and the stairs to finish it off with a flourish! I will then edit it over the Christmas holidays, as it needs to be uploaded to the project blog by Friday 13th January.

Meanwhile, all teams in the contest this year have been asked to introduce themselves to each other by creating a shorter, “Human Chain Reaction”. We filmed ours yesterday, and you can see it below, as well as the others which have already been uploaded to the European Chain Reaction 2012 blog.

 Posted by Michael at 11:34 am

Schoolovision 2012

 Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Music  No Responses »
Dec 132011
 

The multi award-winning International Education project, Schoolovision is back!
Over the past couple of weeks, schools from right across Europe have been signing up to the 2012 version of the contest, which is now into its 4th year. And the great news is that Schoolovision 2012 is promising to be the biggest, and best yet! Already, a total of 37 European countries have confirmed they’ll take part- including, for the 1st time, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Russia and Ukraine!

The contest follows the timeline of the Eurovision Song Contest, meaning that all countries need to choose, practice, video and upload their chosen songs to the project blog by Friday 18th May – eight days before the real Eurovision. The following week we all need to watch and evaluate each song, before Yester’s P5/6 class will lead a Europe-wide webcam conference, where we will call in the votes from each country taking part, on Friday 25th May, starting at 9.00am UK time.

As soon as we have everyone’s votes, we will announce the winners, who will be sent a specially engraved trophy to keep. We anticipate this announcement will be made at around 10.00am UK time.

Have a browse of all the schools and countries taking part on the Schoolovision blog.

 Posted by Michael at 11:01 am

Maths in ICT

 Collaborative work, ICT, Maths, Term 2  No Responses »
Nov 172011
 

I can compare and order a variety of fractions.

Earlier in the week, we used our ICT time to work with a partner on a variety of different problems relating to our fractions work in maths. We used a website that randomly generates a selection of challenging questions, directly relating to what we have done in our groups. If the worksheet proved easy, we had the opportunity to generate a more challenging version, to keep us on our toes!

 Posted by Michael at 3:46 pm

Class talks and presentations

 ICT, Language, Term 2  No Responses »
Nov 112011
 

This presentation about football also included a practical demonstration of skills!

Over the course of the past week, P5/6 have been making presentations on a very wide range of topics to the rest of the class. There have been a variety of ways of presenting as well, which has been great to see. The remaining few presentations will be heard on Monday and thereafter, I will give individual feedback to everyone. Well done P5/6!

 Posted by Michael at 9:17 pm

FlashMeeting webcam conference with Kuvansi school

 ICT, International Education, Language, Term 2  1 Response »
Nov 092011
 

Asking questions to our friends in Finland


We had a really wonderful webcam conference with our link school in Finland this morning, asking and answering lots of questions that we wanted to find out about each other. Winter has finally arrived there, with the temperature last night getting down to -5C, though there is no snow yet.
Remember, if you wish to view the replay of this at home, ask your child to give you the url of the meeting.

..and receiving the replies from our Finnish friends.

 Posted by Michael at 10:53 am

Upcoming webcam conference with Finland

 Collaborative work, ICT, International Education, Term 2  No Responses »
Nov 032011
 

Preparations for our FlashMeeting webcam conference with our Finnish link school.

Next Wednesday, 9th November, we will use the fantastic FlashMeeting educational software to enable us to meet our friends from Finland. As you know, pupils from our link school, Kuvansin koulu, from Kuvansi in Eastern Finland, visited us here at the end of September, so the class teacher Jyrki and I are keen to see the link continue. A couple of years ago, those who were in my class in P4/5 ran a successful collaborative blog with the same pupils in Kuvansi. We had a good laugh this morning, looking at some photos from this blog- it amazed us how much we have all changed! Our Global Citizenship group members are currently deciding who we should link with this year, but in the meantime, we will very happily continue this link with Kuvansi school.

We took a photo of the whole class this morning, to email to Finland, along with lots of questions that we plan to ask during the webcam conference next week.
Although I won’t be able to post the actual link here, I will be delighted to send the url home to parents who wish to watch the recording of the event afterwards. All the FlashMeetings we have hosted over the past three years have been recorded, and they always make great viewing afterwards! Let me know if you wish to watch the event at home!

 Posted by Michael at 4:08 pm

Creating spreadsheets in ICT

 Collaborative work, ICT, Term 2  No Responses »
Oct 282011
 

I can use an ICT program such as Excel to create a spreadsheet.

I can use MS Excel to create a spreadsheet about Europe.

We made great use of the new 2010 version of Microsoft Excel this week in ICT, when we worked collaboratively to create and save our own spreadsheets. The “European passports” that the Global Citizenship group recently obtained for all the upper classes provided the perfect stimulus for this set of lessons, as they are packed full of great information that the class could transfer to their own spreadsheets.

 Posted by Michael at 12:43 pm
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