Using the Educreations IPad APP to explore how to respond to , use and create instructions and commands

Using the Educreations IPad APP to explore commands 

With all our classes from Year 3 onwards we work  on how to respond to , say and then be able to give instructions firstly to friends and then to groups of people . Over the course of four years of language learning the children develop their linguistic ability to :

  1. understand and physically respond to instructions and commands in the second person singular and plural (e.g listen , sing , walk , run , skip , hop etc)
  2. give a simple command in the second person singular 
  3. generate a simple an instruction or command in the second person singular 
  4. generate a simple an instruction or command in the second person plural 

It's important that

they progress from listening and responding to speaking confidently,to being able to create a spoken command independently and then to move on to being able to read and try to write instructions

(with support and/or independently).

Yes, we play games such as Simon says or last man standing bingo.We create mirror spoken activities with one partner following another partners commands or we become physical robot machines or puppets programmed by our partners commands and instructions.We write simple instructional messages for others to follow and we write instructions as part of our messages in a bottle Year 5 writing for purpose focus.

Yesterday thank to

@lisibo

 and her brilliant blog 

İ 

Vamonos

 ! 

I explored how we can use simple technology to create listening , responding and spoken activities linked to two of our core focuses in the Summer term with Year 4 and Year 5 . I found that Educreation's

Interactive Whiteboard APP

simple to use. The drawing pad is just like the IWB and with immediate recording facilities and different coloured pens it allowed me the chance to develop some creative and effective simple target language activities .

Firstly I generated for myself  symbols to represent physical commands (this could be a really engaging activity for the children what shapes and what colours would they associate with actions such as walking ,running ,swimming etc )

Here are a few examples of mine .

Walk 

Swim

Jump

Along with other symbols we create as a class- we could use these to practise saying the commands/ writing the actual word for the command in the air on a whiteboard or a sequence of written instructions and we could give children two or three symbols to convey in the target language to a partner who must respond appropriately.

In Summer Year 4 will focus on the

World Cup .

World Cup symbol

I trialled using Educreation's APP to draw the "sense " of each of four movements that you may want the children to understand, react to and say to partner or a group if you were practising sports instructions e.g  jump,run,turn and stop.

Educreations enabled me in English (you will hear my best Northern accent!) to draw symbols and say commands at the same time.You can hear and see the very simple creation of mine below:

World Cup Actions

I am now able to pass my message over to someone else to listen to , respond to physically and then write out in the target language as a sequence message or menu of commands for a third person to follow and do.

The Beach

With Year 5 we go to the beach and I decided that the APP could help me to create the physical sense of the freedom of going into the sea . Here is my recording plus drawings . with Year 5 we are exploring longer sentences and short texts . This recording would enable two people to write in their own order commands they associate with actions on the beach , swap tablets , listen to each others and then use the actions they have either physically or in their imaginations taken part in to create full first                                     person singular sentences about time spent on the                                       beach !

Here's the drawing and recording for you to listen to. 

Time on the beach

What first person singular  present tense simple sentences using colours as adjectives would you write ?