Category Archives: Computing

Variables and If, Do, Else statements

Class Work, Computing

Year 4 Robins have today been continuing their understanding of programming by building algorithms with variables and If, Do, Else statements.

The children use a website called ‘Code for Life’ to program a van to drive on a road but wait at traffic lights if the red light appears and move forward if the traffic light is showing green.

Robins were asked to use the least amount of blocks as possible to ensure they get a higher score at the end of the challenge. Some children impressed with Mr Baddhan with their debugging and programming skills.

Game making in Kodu

Class Work, Computing

In the last couple of lessons, Year 4 Robins have been getting more familar with programming using Kodu – a 3D game developing platform.

The children were asked to explore the program and see if they could insert a Rover to move around and collect coins. The coins should vanish once the Rover bumps into them. Points should also be awarded when each coin is collected.

Children were asked to add an apple to their games to take off points when the Rover bumps into them.

Climate change comic strips

Class Work, Computing, PSHE

Year 4 Robins have been learning about features of a comic strip. They said the following features were important; design, colour, short snappy titles, speech bubbles, thinking bubbles and key characters.

Robins then created a comic strip based on their PSHE lesson of climate change and being environmentally friendly.

The children suggested the following facts could be included in their strips:

► Switch lights off when not in use
► Ride a bike to school instead of being driven to school
► Read a book instead of using a computer
► Recycle rubbish

The app children used was Comic Life on the iPads.

Creating shapes in Hopscotch

Class Work, Computing

During Computing with Mr Baddhan today, Robins used an iPad app called Hopscotch, where they learned how to program characters to perform an action using instruction blocks.

The app allows children to insert various programming blocks including motion, drawing and repetition.

Mr Baddhan asked the children to build a code to create three shapes; a square, rectangle and a triangle.

The triangle was the most challenging shapre to create however some of the children guessed the angle required for a triangle was 120 degrees repeated three times.

Creating a Scratch Knock Knock program

Class Work, Computing

Year 4 Robins have been programming their sprites to tell each other Knock Knock jokes in Scratch. The children added two sprites and then added a backdrop.

Robins also once again used the coordinates block – learning about the x and y axis of their sprites and program them to start at a specific position on the screen.

They then used the say and wait blocks to pause between the say block conversation.

See some examples of their work below.

Amelia

Lewis

Dayne

Creating Etch a Sketch using Scratch

Class Work, Computing

In the past couple of lessons, Year 4 Robins have been attempting to create an Etch a Sketch game. They were shown how to program their chosen sprites to use the pen up and down blocks.

Some children were then able to press different keys to change the pen colour and also change the backdrop. Some children even managed to add an instruction backdrop before the game loaded.

Here are some of their finished games.

Nyeema

Moharnab

Kai

Video: Bystanders

Class Work, Computing

Today Year 4 completed an online safety lesson all about bystanders. To begin with the children had to think about how a bystander would feel having witnessed or read unkind behaviour online. We then spoke about how the bystander could deal with these situations and what the best thing to do would be.

The children were then asked to create a little rap or a poem to give people advice on how to deal with unkind online behaviour.

Presentations on the Earth’s layers

Class Work, Computing, Geography, Science

After learning about the Earth’s layers, year 4 were given the task to become an expert on just one of the layers. They spent time with a partner researching on the internet and created a presentation to share with the rest of the class.

The following day the children then presented to their peers. During this time the children were learning about all of the different layers from each other.

Reliable or fake website?

Class Work, Computing

This afternoon, Year 4 looked at a website called ‘The Dog Island’. This website is a fake website that has been specifically made for children to explore and question the reliability of it. After looking at the website for a short amount of the time, the children’s immediate reaction was that it sounded great and was a good place for dogs to go to so they can be free.

Evie and Megan then remembered something that Mr Baddhan and Google had told them. They remembered that if the website was safe to use there would be a locked padlock next to the URL. The class could not see that padlock there so they decided that the website was not secure and probably wasn’t real. The children then spent time looking at what other clues are on the website to give you the idea that it is not genuine.

Digital Media

Class Work, Computing

Year 4 will be completing some photo editing in art and design as part of their digital media unit. We spoke about different perspectives you could take photographs from. Before the children go out and take their own photographs to edit, they had some time using the editing software to edit photos Miss Edwards had taken. The children really enjoyed having an experiment and seeing what they could do!