Monthly Archives: February 2017

Pictographs of our favourite toy colours

During Computing with Mr Baddhan, Year 1 Puffins have been tallying up the colours of their favourite toys. Before half term, the children brought in their toys and this week they’ve been looking at each of the toys and adding up the most popular colour.

The most popular toy colour was gold and the least favourite red.

They then used Purple Mash’s 2Count program to add data into a pictograph – see below for some examples of their work.

Animal habitats and countries

Today the Puffins have been finishing our topic on Animals. We have allocated the animals to their habitats and countries. Here are some of the facts we have learnt along the way.

“Snakes have cold blood they are reptiles” Lola

“Tigers live in Asia they have fur to keep them warm” Nathan

“If elephants are hot they flap their ears to keep them cool” Callum.C

“Polar bears live in cold countries and have blubba to keep them warm” Brooke

“Giraffes live in Africa and they are herbivores” Kerris

“Hippos live in Africa and they can swim in water” Ryan

“Lions eat meat, they are carnivores” OIiver

Labeling and describing our toys

Year 1 Puffins have today been labeling their toys using Purple Mash. They took photographs of their toys yesterday and today started to think about adjectives to describe their toys.

The children used the labeling 2DiY program to label their toys using words like fluffy, soft, hard, cute, nose, eyes, ears etc.

Mr Baddhan was impressed with all the children who completed today’s lesson really well.

Taking photographs and labeling

As part of today’s Computing lesson, Puffins brought some of their favourite teddy bears to take photographs of.

They learned that once photographs are taken, they are stored on the memory card. The process to transfer photographs from camera to a computer is to take the memory card out of the camera and insert into the computer.

Here are some of the photographs taken by the children of their cuddly toys. They will be labeling their photographs in next week’s lesson. Visit our blog next week to see how Puffins get on.

Sequence and directions

Year 1 Puffins continued their understanding of clear instructions when using Code for Life’s Rapid Router website.

Puffins worked through the levels as they programmed a van to move from one point to another using programming blocks.

The blocks were as follows:

– Move Forwards
– Move Backwards
– Turn Left
– Turn Right

The children came across various challenges including working out the correct turn to use (left or right). Some children did really well working this out however the others had to use a BeeBot to help them work out the correct direction.

Sequence
The children were also introduced to a new Computing term called sequence. When programming, it is important to make sure that all the steps are presented in the correct order – this is sequence.

Here is an example of a real life sequence – in the correct order.

Algorithms and debugging in 2Go

During today’s Computing lesson Puffins learned more about algorithms and a new word called debug. Debugging is when you fix a mistake in a program.

They used Purple Mash’s 2Go website to program a car along the racing track and then debug their mistakes.

Before the children were able to go on the computers, they were asked to write down their instructions which they then tested on Purple Mash.

Writing and testing algorithms

During today’s Computing lesson with Mr Baddhan, Year 1 learned more about algorithms. They used a program called Lily Hop to write down instructions.

Yesterday Puffins learned that algorithms are a clear set of instructions to achieve an outcome.

The children were asked to write down instructions to direct the frog to the stone using directional commands. They then tested their instructions to see if they were correct.

Algorithsm using Bee-Bots

Year 1 have been learning about algorithms today during their Computing lesson with Mr Baddhan.

Algorithms are clear set of instructions to achieve an outcome. They looked at a few examples of real life algorithms including brushing your teeth and making a smoothie.

Puffins then used this same understanding to program Bee-Bots to move from one point to another.

They quickly realised that their instructions need to be clear and they need to have a good understanding of their directions.

In the next few lessons, Puffins will continue to learn about algorithms but will also start to look at debugging and sequence.