We have been learning about 2D and 3D objects.
Mrs Nicholson told us to design a 2D robot in our maths books using only squares, rectangles and triangles. We had to work out the perimeter and area of our robot.
Next we turned our 2D robot into a 3D robot. We had to decide whether we wanted it to be made from cubes or cuboids. Most of us decided to make them cuboids. Then was the challenging part. We had to create our own nets and make our robot to scale. We taped our maths paper to the window and drew our nets to scale over the maths grid. Take a look at some below:
Oh what fun we have had trying to make our stop motion movies. We have had to do a lot of problem solving and learn to use new apps.
We have written stories, created characters, painted background and thought about sound effects. After that we set to work trying to find the right app to make our movies.
Initially we borrowed some tripods and used cameras to take our photographs. This was so that our photographs would be taken from the same spot each time and the film wouldn't be jumpy. Also we only have a few ipads and it allowed some people to be photographing while others could make their movie up using the app on the ipad. However, this was not as simple as we hoped. Firstly we couldn't just put the photographs onto the ipads so we saved them in dropbox so we could access them. Unfortunately the stop motion app wouldn't let us import any photographs, we could only take photographs while in the application. So we tried to make our movies using the imovie app. There was a lot of problem solving as we learnt how to shorten the photographs so they moved quickly through but we had trouble with the pictures moving around so our movies were a little jumpy. Take a look at Lucy's movie:
Then we tried to take our photographs on the ipads. This created another problem of how we could support the ipad so it wouldn't move while we re-positioned our characters around to take our photographs. We ended up wedging the ipad between the cellotape dispensers and that worked quite well. The next problem we came across was that our stories were longer than the number of photographs we had. We had to learn how to make our pictures freeze so our movie would have some still shots as well. Timing was everything. We worked at trying to keep everything in time but it was tricky as you will see in Oliver's movie:
We are still problem solving. And we are so proud of our efforts. A lot of learning has gone into these movies and we have problem solved all the way. To see more of our efforts visit our youtube account at:
For our calendar art this year we decided we wanted our artwork to be local. We chose to say 'hello from North Head'. We looked at different New Zealand artists and combined some of their techniques. We used water colour chalks for the background and collage to produce our mixed media artworks. Mrs Nicholson photographed them through the clear files of the book we placed them in and unfortunately the light has effected the quality of the photographs. Hopefully you will still get some idea of how talented we are when you see our wonderful art.
We know we need to be expressive with our voices for our stop motion movies so we have been practicing by producing audio videos. We were only allowed to use our expressive voices and sound effects to achieve an interesting play.
Boring
Narrator Daniel
Characters:
Alex Jamie
Princess Zara
Knight Oscar
Dragon Thomas
Pirate 1 Daniel
Pirate 2 Lucy
Alien Thomas
The School Bus Robot
Characters:
Bus Monitor Annabelle
Nick Elliot
Zoom Tiaki
Zack Harry
Nita Holly
Mrs Vai Holly
Bus Kid Oliver
In preparation for our stop motion movie we made some sound sequence movies. We were only allowed to use sound to tell our story. Take a look at these:
Lucy's planning and sound sequence of World War 2
Owen's idea of a 'Bad Day' - I'm glad I'm not this person!
We have all written persuasive speeches and performed them to the class. We voted on the speeches and choose our top three. The speeches had to be relevant to an 8 or 9 year old, convince us, hold our attention and entertain us. We looked at the speech content and delivery. We were all given marking cards and then put down our scores. Mrs Nicholson added them up and divided by the number of score cards to get a total. The top three speeches were then practised over the holidays and performed again for the team. Mrs Bennett judged those. Unfortunately none of us got in the top three placings but we are very happy with our efforts. Here are two of those three top speeches. To see all the speeches go to our Youtube channel.
This term we are making stop motion movies. We are learning about onomatopoeia and how to use it to add interest to our stories. We are also learning about sound effects and how they can enhance our story, create mood, and add information to the story. Here are some of the stories we wrote after practising for 'ShakeOut Day', where we used the idea of an earthquake for our motivation. You will find more on our Youtube channel.
