Created by Silas (Year 5) – For Mrs Niewman
Makey Makey Workshops in Digi-Tech
Thanks to our school community’s participation in the Woolworth’s Earn & Learn program, we were able to select a class set of Makey Makey Kits – (a 2-sided circuit board which enables you to interact with computer programs by using every day objects as a replacement for the keyboard and mouse)
In Digital Technologies workshops, Year 3-6 students have been having great fun exploring how to use the Makey Makeys to create their own control pads and perform such tasks as playing musical instruments and interactive Scratch games. We haven’t performed any Mozart compositions yet but we’re ‘fine tuning’ it . . . . . Stay tuned!
School Values
Our lunchtime club has been making videos about our school values.
Here is our first one about TRUST.
National Day of Action against Bullying and Violence
Last Friday the children of St Robert’s joined many other schools to take a stand against bullying and violence. They did this by learning ways to recognise and deal with bullies as well as how to support the victims and especially how to act and get support if it happens to themselves. They demonstrated their support by wearing different coloured hats (It is OK to be different!). The highlight of the day was making a rainbow on the oval and tossing their hats in the air.
New Technology to assist Learning –
Year 1/2 students have quickly adapted to their new Lenovo Thinkpads and were excited to begin working on them. Our five Year 1/2 classes have each been equipped with 6 new Thinkpad computers and iPad/laptop charging trolleys. (Stay tuned for some more additions soon.) As well, our teachers were surprised and extremely excited and grateful to be given a new ACER Laptop for use with their Smartboard and in the classroom. A big thank you from the teachers to the P&F for providing the teachers with their new computers.
St Robert’s App Store
Have you ever wanted to make your own App?
Year 5\6 students had plenty of ideas and enthusiasm for creating their own apps and worked very hard during the term to produce an amazing range of usable apps. To do this we used the tool Google Slides which gave us the ability to make the apps interactive. We hope you enjoy trying some of our apps. We’d love to read your comments and feedback.
Sphero STEM Challenge
Voyage of The First Fleet
(Powered by Robots)
Learning about History with Robots? – Combining our Past with our Future?
Last term, in their STEM Inquiry about the First Fleet, Year 4 students learnt about the historical significance of the voyage, investigated the Geography of the continents and mapping the world, designed, built and tested a sailing ship prototype and re-enacted their chosen ship’s journey to Australia using a robot to control and power it to its destination. (Digital Technologies)
The great benefit of the STEM (Science Technology, Engineering and Maths) approach to learning gives students the opportunity to collaborate and work on a variety of challenging problems and projects.
Sphero STEM Challenge
We have been working on some Sphero Challenges in ICT. In this challenge we had to put Sphero to work.
TASK
Design and make a vehicle for your Sphero to drive (push or pull) around your space.
QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
What factors affected the way your vehicle worked?
Did you have to make adjustments? If so, what did you have to do to make it work better?
EXTRA CHALLENGES
How can you make your vehicle turn on various angles?
Add some spoken commentary to your code.
Dancing Bee-Bot Movies
Year 5/6 students designed their own costumes and designed the code to synchronise dances for their Bee-Bots to perform.
After putting their dance to music and videoing the performance, they created their movies and shared them with the class.
Here are a few samples for you to watch.
By Josh, Lachie & Sam W
By Ollie K, Eliza H, Georgia C, George L
By Mekah, Hudson, Louis & Amelia
By Millie E, Ali Z, Lous L, Will M
Bee-Bot Art
The Bee-Bot Winter Olympics
We had great fun testing our Bee-Bot coding skills by participating in the Bee-Bot Winter Olympics.