This morning I put an article on xtra news up for my class to see about a tiny frog they had discovered in Borneo. I was intending to talk about it as our oral language. I went off to do a couple of things and came back to find some of my students (aka as "digital natives"!) had opened activeinspire, dragged the photo of the tiny frog onto a new flipchart (a new skill I had taught them the day before) and they had started writing words about the frog around the photo. They were totally focused on discussing and writing and they had no need for me whatsoever!!
After reading through the article and discussing it further for oral language, the children then asked if we could use google Earth to travel from school to Borneo (we have only used google Earth once before). So we found our school then travelled to Borneo where they looked at the difference in landscape (although some of them were disappointed that they couldn't actually see a frog!!)
My other highlight this week followed on from the class viewing a voicethread a year 1 class at another school had made based around their shared book for the week. JB (one of my digikidz) announced that he would like to make something like this in photostory. He selected a shared book we have read previously that needed "lots of expression" and decided that he would be holding auditions the next day. Today he held auditions - he told the class what he was looking for (reading clearly, expressively and fluently), he took each child out to have a practice read then they did their audition for him and he has selected his final 7. Tomorrow morning I will give him a quick photostory refresher and then the project is all his. Can't wait to see the results. If this is what 5 and 6 year olds are capable of given the opportunity, imagine what they will be doing when they are in Year 6...
