Hole in the Head Presentations

This year, my Year 6 class have looked at Edward Jenner, Charles Darwin and Dr Barnardo all usually following some kind of poster or biography idea for the children to show their learning. However, for Gandhi, I wanted something different.
I stumbled upon this blog post http://jivespin.wordpress.com/2013/12/03/head-in-a-hole-a-different-way-of-reviewing-learning-and-progress/ which talked about Hole in the Head presentations.

The children enjoyed this activity and it allowed for those that were less confident at speaking in front of others to feel more comfortable as the could 'hide' behind the poster.

Key Features of the Poster:

• Picture/drawing of the person's body
• Thought bubbles (could have good and bad viewpoints)
• Speech bubbles
• Name of person
• Mini-profile - age etc.

The simple structure allowed lots of creativity, especially with the speech bubbles as the children talked about Gandhi's Salt Protest. The children were able to present their information in the 3rd person or as Gandhi which really added to their work.


Using technology:

• You could use Morfo to recreate the character speaking
• Use Explain Everything to annotate around a picture or drawing and record the presentation
• Use Thinglink to bring the picture to life with lots of video and captions

Using technology in Maths Investigations

Recently, I delved into the archives to find some of the classic maths investigations which have been done many times around the world. I decided to revisit the 5 multilink cube problem, known by some as Pentominoes or Zids and Zods by others. Either way, children need to make as many different shapes as possible using the 5 cubes.
Previously, children haven't recorded their findings, have drawn them on squared paper or  my TA has taken photographs. This time, I used the app Pic Collage for the children to record and photograph this themselves. The beauty of using this app was that the children could rotate pictures on the app or physically move the shape and photograph it and compare them with their previous shapes. This was great for getting rid of duplicate shapes and also supported children visualising a rotated shape ( a classic KS2 SAT question)

Whilst this worked well for this investigation, I feel there is a lot more potential to record all the work and thinking that goes into a maths investigation. Having the 'whole picture' would really support AT1 assessment. For more problem solving resources try:


nrich.maths.org


inquirymaths.co.uk






























Possible Next Steps:

1. Export the Pic Collage to Thinglink app and add video of the children working or presenting their findings. Children could also add further pictures of any tables or graphs they have produced.
2. Export the Pic Collage to Explain Everything, children could then annotate around the picture, record a soundtrack taking somebody through their method of investigation. Graphs and tables could then be produced using the Explain Everything app.