eTwinning School partnerships in Europe

Kullegg San Gorg Preca Guzeppi Agius Paola Primary A

by Ms. Anna Maria Dingli

Description

Make your favourite class poems come to life! We make and share short video clips of the class' favourite poems or nursery rhymes. We make use of kids' paintings, models, toys, photos and recordings and animate them through software like Microsoft Moviemaker, Microsoft Photo story, Stop motion Pro, Microsoft PowerPoint or any other similar software.

Progress

First Term

In November Ms. Dingli and Ms. Cardona (ICT Support Teacher) started introducing lessons through the use of a laptop. The children started getting accustomed to different equipment, like the mouse, the speakers and a microphone. The first session was called Passiġġata ta' Dudu (A caterpillar's stroll), which was the introduction to a favourite class poem called "Għandi Dudu Aħdar" (I have a caterpillar) which will be animated later on during this scholastic year. The pupils also did crafts related to this story and to the Circle theme being practiced in class. The children used green paint to do finger painting on various circles then joined together to form a caterpillar and Ms. Dingli wrote the pupil's name on each caterpillar.

Powerpoint Presentation to pupils in their classroom	Showing different ICT equipment we might use	Pupil trying out a simple interactive activity	Another pupil trying out the simple interactive activity
Pupils enjoying the interactive activity	Finger painting on circles with green paint	More finger painting....	The finished craft

At the end of November, Ms. Dingli started preparing the children for the Christmas concert, and this will include the traditional Maltese carol "Ninni La Tibkix Iżjed" (Sleep Don't Cry Anymore). Ms. Dingli together with Ms. Abela Craus (Kg 2.2) played the music for this carol and the children learnt the song. Ms. Cardona came to school and recorded the song. This song was stored for our first eTwinning project's video animation and also used within an online presentation called "Il-Ġrajja tal-Milied" (The first Christmas). This presentation was shown to the pupils and will be used for the Christmas concert too.

In the beginning of December, Ms. Dingli did a craft of angels taken from the above mentioned online presentation's website with her pupils. Then with the help of Ms. E. Farrell and Ms. J. Cardona, they animated the Ninni La Tibkix Iżjed carol through the Stop Motion Pro software.

Ms. Dingli also received the first class presentation from the Poland school and played it on her laptop for her pupils to see. She then prepared a presentation of her own class and it is here for all to see.

Click Here to download Ms. Dingli's class presentation

Second Term

The next nursery rhyme to be animated for this project is Humpty Dumpty. Ms. Dingli and Ms. J. Cardona (ICT support teacher) discussed the nursery rhymes and started organizing activities related to it.

On the 30th January, Ms. J. Cardona took the children to the Multimedia room where she showed them an animated version of Humpty Dumpty from the EducationCity.com online software which is currently being evaluated by Malta's ICT Primary Teachers. At first the children were seated on cushions over the carpet and watched the animation from the large monitor.      

 

Screenshots from the online software at EducationCity.com

Then for the second part of the activity, each child had the chance of trying to fix Humpty Dumpty. This part served to practice mouse handling and clicking for these very young pupils.

In the meantime, Ms. Dingli has been preparing the props to animate the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme.

And here is the finished video:

Jessica Maris Cardona and Kay Darmanin Farrell did some crafts related to Humpty Dumpty at home with the help of their parents. Jessica Maris used crushed egg shells to make her Humpty Dumpty, whilst Kay used papier mache` to create the oval shaped Humpty Dumpty.

Third Term

Since Spring was nearing we thought it was time to animate the poem we had already started practicing at the beginning of the scholastic year, called "Għandi dudu aħdar". To introduce the poem again we decided to do a session in which we carried out an online activity called Zmuc u Zmilda jagħmlu Festa tal-Għid (Zmuc and Zmilda make celebrate Easter) in which Spring and Easter are mentioned.  Ms. J. Cardona introduced the story and we made a discussion about what we see in Spring and how the gardens change during this time of the year. At the end of this story there is an activity where ten easter eggs are hidden in a garden and the children came out to find and click on an egg. This served for the pupils to practice using the mouse.

Ms. J. Cardona presenting the story	Pupils singing "Ghandi dudu ahdar" during the presentation	Playing the interactive game at the end of the presentation

With the help of Ms. T. Formosa (ICT Peripatetic Teacher) we divided the pupils into two groups, each group using a laptop, to have a go at repeating the story and the clicking activity at the end of the story.

A group of pupils working out the Zmuc & Zmilda clicking activity with Ms. A. M. Dingli		Another group of pupils working out the Zmuc & Zmilda clicking activity with Ms. T. Formosa

Since for this poem, Ms. A. M. Dingli and I decided to use the StopMotion Pro software to shoot the video, we thought it would be best to create the props out of playdough. We chose this software since it gives you the possibility to take a number of sequential shots through a webcam whilst allowing you to vary slightly the objective from one shot to the other. Ms. Dingli spent a session with the pupils creating different coloured playdough. The pupils really enjoyed mixing the flour, oil, salt, water and food colouring together and kneading them into playdough.

The next thing to do was the storyboard.  This helped us decide which props we needed to create, the sequence of events and which motions were necessary.

On the next day, Ms. Tania Formosa and Ms. Jeannette Cardona joined Ms. Dingli’s class to shoot the video. We set up the laptop on a pupil’s table and connected the webcam to it.

The pupils were first given chunks of green playdough to cover a given tray to make the background look as if it were green grass. Forks and sticks were also used to give texture to this background.

The pupils mixed some of the green playdough with some yellow playdough to create  a slightly different shade of green to make the caterpillar. They made a number of small balls and used a long kebab stick to stick the balls together to form our main character. The pupils also used the other colours to make the flowers to put into the garden.

It was shooting time now! A child, with the help of Ms. Dingli started moving the caterpillar over the green grass background. The pupils all took turns using the software to shoot the different photos. The children made the caterpillar change into a butterfly by adding and removing things from the scene. Then they made it fly up and down in a garden full of flowers by moving flowers down and up to produce the opposite effect.

Every now and then, the pupils enjoyed reviewing the shots they had already taken and singing the poem to it. The SMT popped in during the activity to give a look at the interesting work being done by this class. They all congratulated the children and enjoyed watching the video production.

At the end the pupils were so enthusiastic with what they had created that they called another class to come and watch their video. Later on, we recorded the pupils singing the song and attached the sound clip to the stopmotion video through Microsoft MovieMaker.

And here's our video!

eTwinning School partnerships in Europe

Kullegg San Gorg Preca Guzeppi Agius Paola Primary A