Making Learning Irresistible

During the Spring Term Year 5 have been looking at “What makes a Good Photo?” Based on a set of criteria they discussed in their PPA sessions, they found photos of African animals which they then edited in Paint Shop Pro. The children then used Google Sketch Up and made a Gallery to house their African pictures. This is the first time they have used Sketchup and ther results have been pretty impressive! Have a look at some of their Galleries below:

Lewis

Haydn

Morgan

leo

Kate

Tom

Arran

Children created news Articles based around the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.  They had to look at the fairytale and turn it into a interesting newspaper article. Children looked at the layout and content of newspaper and applied them to their work. Here is a selection of their finished articles.

Aqeel

Ella

kenzey

Millie

naylah

Year 5 have been making adverts  during PPA this half term. They wrote, directed and edited the films themselves which were based around an idea of Victorian Chimney Sweeps, to fit in with their Big Question topic. They looked at various adverts on the internet to get an idea of what makes a “good advert” and then worked in groups of 5 or 6 to come up with their own company names and script. They filmed the advert and then used Windows Movie Maker to add titles, effects and transitions.

Here are a couple that have been completed:

victorian add from jayne scannali on Vimeo.

advert from jayne scannali on Vimeo.

My Movie from jayne scannali on Vimeo.

For Year Four’s final film of the year they decided to make a stop frame animation using people rather than model characters. It makes quite a different look to the film and involved hundreds of photos, just for a few seconds of animation. They have really got the hang of using iStopMotion and iMovie to put the final product together, and hopefully can build on this knowledge next year. Have a look at their film and please leave them a comment! Well done to all the Year 4 children involved!

Thursday saw the visit of the Chorlton Schools Olympic Torch! The Torch was made by a collaboration of children from each of the  primary schools in Chorlton and was carried by teams of torchbearers from each school. On a beautiful sunny morning the torch made its was to Chorlton Park from Barlow Hall Primary School before moving on to Brookburn Primary School. It finished its journey eventually at St John’s Primary School where an opening ceremony was held which was attend by the Lord Mayor of Manchester and the Lady Mayoress. We hope you enjoy a flavour of our fun morning with the slide show below.

torch

This year’s group of animators have been the best yet!! We have had 9 entries to Manchester University’s Animation 12 competition involving  over 15 children from Year 6. The hardest part now is the wait until the end of May for the results!!

Most of this years talented animators have created their own backgrounds and characters as well as recording voices instead of speech bubbles.

You can see some of our entries below:

By Manik, Rashad and Felix

By Hooriya

by Kadiyah and Hattie

By Ellie

By Daniel and Elliot

This term in PPA….

Year 1 have been learning about a keyboard and how to use the Spacebar, Shift and Return keys. They have done some word processing in Tizzy’s First Tools and I have some really nice work to show for it! Many of them can already  log on by themselves with their usernames and passwords.

Year 5 have been learning to use Scratch, using Scratch cards which show step by step instructions on how to programme characters. They will come back to this later in the year but have really enjoyed their work on this so far.

Year 6 have been using Scratch to programme their entries for  Animation 12 run by the University of Manchester. We have been entering it for the last 4 years, but this years crop of projects  are some of the best I have seen! Lots of wonderful art and programming has been going on and I hope to be able to post them when we have finished them before Easter so watch this space!!

Our Year 4 animators have been busy this half term making new stop frame animations. They are really getting to grips with planning, photographing and manipulating the images for their films.  They used IMovie to edit the films and add titles and music.  Each film takes 12 images per second so they had to use over 150 images for a few seconds work! Here are the latest episodes….

Wonder what Bob and Gary will get upto next term?

Some children from Year 4 have spent this term getting to grips with making Stop Frame Animations. They created a character called Bob the Bookcase Kid and modelled him from Newplast.

The group then split into two and used a digital camera to take lots of photos of their character moving. The put these into software called “iStopMotion” and then into ‘iMovie” to finish the films and add titles and music. Although the films are only a few seconds long, the groups have got great ideas and hopefully there will be more “Bob” stories next term! Please have a look at their films and tell us what you think!!!!

Bob’s First Adventure by Arran, Yoghraj and Alfie

Bob the Bookcase Kid by Iman, Emily and Anisa