Year 1 w/b 13th February 2023 Detective Day and Computing
Date: 17th Feb 2023 @ 4:51pm
Detective Day and Computing
Our highlights this week have been our Detective Day on Tuesday and Computing .
It was lovely to see the range of outfits on Detective day from Hermelin, Police Officers and Smokey and The Bandit to Sherlock Holmes , Giraffe detectives and a range of sleuths with magnifying glasses, name badges and hats. Thank you for your help encouraging your children to dress up and really engage with the day.
Our focus in the morning was discovering how slider mechanisms could make a moving picture. Our investigations started with an opportunity to explore sliders in order that the children understood:
- sliders are mechanisms
- sliders can make things move
- moving models can be created that use sliders
- They can use the words: up, down, left, right, vertical and horizontal to describe movement.
Secondly, we designed the background, moving part and described the movement in a moving picture based on our focus text Hermelin. Next, we used our design to make our own moving pictures. Some of us made Hermelin move up and down lampposts and across chimney pots on Offley Street, others made Goldy the goldfish swimming in the water feature or Baby McMumbo crawling across the rug and up onto the sofa. Finally, we evaluated our moving pictures identifying what went well and what we would improve next time and we had a quiz to assess our understanding of mechanisms.
In the afternoon we were shocked to discover that a number of belongings from school had been taken and scattered all over the forest. We worked together to investigate what had happened and used our skills to identify and record the evidence of the incident that had occurred. The children relished in the opportunity to become a detective to investigate the scene that we discovered. There were some very inventive children who used some novel ways of recording their findings when they couldn’t find a pencil!
In Computing we have been learning about algorithms and what they are. We found out that these are instructions that computers need to do something. We were able to write out own instructions for creating a jam sandwich and a fruit smoothie! We looked at input devices such as keyboards and mice and output devices like printers and screens for computers. We also created our own virtual assistants just like Alexa and Siri. We gave our assistants. instructions to follow. For example, if we clapped our hands (input) the assistant will jump (output). We have also learnt about decomposition which means breaking something into smaller steps to help us find bugs (errors) in our algorithms.
This week we have also celebrated Internet Safety Day. The children discussed the valuable resources that the internet provides us with and how to stay safe when using the internet. The important message for the children was the importance of speaking to a grown up if they ever saw or heard something on the internet that made them feel unhappy or worried.
We hope you have a fun and enjoyable half term and look forward to seeing you back after the break.
The Year One Team
