Bike Baron - More Learning Journeys

I first heard about Bike Baron on the excellent Mr Andrews Online Blog. The article entitled 'Raising Standards in Boys Literacy is full of great ideas for this app.

http://mrandrewsonline.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/part-1-raising-standards-in-boys.html

Since then, as with most apps, it has been updated to its 19th version with some added features. I have used these over the last few weeks with some great results from the creators Qwiboo and Mountain Sheep.

Level Creator Feature:

This newer feature allows you to create your own levels from scratch using similar building blocks with a drag and drop system. Once you have created your level you can then test it using the Bike Baron.

In the Classroom:

1) DT Projects: we used this as a short DT project which linked with our science topic of materials. The children were tasked with creating the best jump ever! They wrote a list of materials and the type of blocks they used. By changing the texture of the blocks they created different properties, which allowed for some great discussion of scientific vocabulary. At each stage, the children could test their jumps and constantly evaluated and improved their jumps, something which can take an age to do practically. Once they had created 'The One,' we then used practical materials to make jumps of launch toy cars from, a pull back motorbike would have been better but I couldn't find one!

The children were engaged with this from the start and the usually dull planning stage contained a lot of important learning.

2) Maths: Using the blocks or the burning barrels, my class created a range of 3d shapes and found the perimeter, area and volume of these shapes, this served as a good first lesson to teach the principles.

Exploring number patterns - Which number patterns make the best jumps? An honest question for which I didn't have an answer. Children worked on number patterns at their differentiated level so we had 8x table along with square numbers. Some children also created their own number sequences, in an attempt to find the 'Golden Jump Formula'.

Record Mode

You can record elements of riding in single player mode or your own level creations.once recorded you can then record commentary over it or in-screen video.

Using the ideas outlined in the mr Andrews post, you can use the record feature to allow children to remember or innovate their original ideas. This really helped to support my less able students and would work well in KS1 too. 

We also explored the role of the crowd, what noises would they make? Another idea was to play the role of the Bike Baron's mum and we thought about her reaction or words of motherly wisdom.

the record feature really supported the ideas from Mr Andrews but also opened up some other writing opportunities too such as a news report from the scene of the big stunt.

I used these activities with Year 6, however, I think that the record feature really opens this up to the whole of the primary age range with a focus on speaking and listening.