Today in year 6 we were looking at averages – the mean, median, mode and range. While I was planning this lesson last week – I noticed a tweet highlighting a lesson on averages using the Wii from Robert Drummond the blog post set out how he planned on using the Wii and bowling to teach averages – it fitted the bill perfectly so I stole – sorry ‘magpied’ the idea for today!

I followed the lesson set out in the blog – I already have five groups in my maths groups so just spread one of the table onto the other four so that I had the four bowling teams.  The children had not idea that we would be using the Wii for maths. Instead we began with the words mean, median, mode and range on the IWB and I asked the four groups to talk on their tables as to what the words meant – about half of the class could remember the definitions which was a good start.

We then came to the conclusion that we would need some data – they had various ideas, shoe sizes, heights etc.  When I switched the view on the IWB to the WIi – there was an increase in the excitement level in the class! I explained that each group of 4 would be bowling and that they would need to write down the score – on their score sheets – you can see the one I used below:

After round 1, I paused the game – pressing the home button is a quick way to do this, and gave them a couple of minutes to work out the mean, median and mode. This was then shared with the class and then we proceeded with the game! This continued until we had completed all 10 rounds – working out the averages as we went.

It was a thrilling ending with one team winning the bowling by just one point! However as I had stated at the beginning of the lesson this was not the ‘true’ point of the lesson – it was the team who had worked out the averages correctly – that team earned themselves an extra 5 minutes playtime. While I worked this out – the children then wrote definitions for mode, median and mean in their books as well as commenting on if they enjoyed the lesson.

The comments included:

‘great way of learning – fun and enjoyable thanks’

‘if i get a question on averages in my sats i will just think of the Wii to remind me’

it was fun working in a group to bowl together and work together on our maths’

‘will you thank Mr Drummond for the idea miss – it was cool’

So thank you Robert for letting me and the class ‘magpie’ your idea – it was a great lesson and a great way for working out averages.

As it is Valentines day today thought I would go down the non-commercial route and highlight sites that I love to share created for free by teachers who inspire me on twitter.

The first are from @simonhaughton an ICT genius who has created the Infant encyclopedia and Primary School History and then readily shared them with the world – both are fantastic and a great way of researching especially for use in Infant classrooms.

Bev Evans @bevevans22 hosts a fantastic site at communication4all - freely sharing a range of resources for using in the classroom and this year is also posting a clip art image a day as part of her posterous project.

Next is Mr Thorne nd his wonderful Mr Thorne does phonics site – great for showing in class and at home and it also features Geraldine the Giraffe ct

Next is from Mark Warner @markw29 who creates a range of websites – teaching themes and ideas to inspire do exactly what they say – great themes and ideas to inspire!

Last but not least – is safe search – the tech bit comes from @johnMclear who works for @primaryt a great search engine that is safe for use in schools – easy for children to use and links to copyright free images too.

These are just some of the sites that I love to visit and love to share – let’s share some great work this Valentines day created by teachers who love what they do and do such a lovely job!

Almost a month since my last blog post… a combination of factors have led to this but I am now back! With lots of ideas and blogs to come in the next couple of weeks.

After attending both LWF and BETT – the weeks leading up to now have been very busy both at work and personally – but I have had lots of fun and spent some great time with the family.  Sometimes life can be like that, it’s good to take a step back, recharge the batteries and look at new ideas – of which I have been doing lots of over the last month.

LWF was an amazing event, speaking on the round stage as part of the games based learning strand was at the same time a highlight and perhaps the most nerve-wracking thing I have ever done!

From Learning without Frontiers Flickr

It also enabled me to meet up with lots of old friends and make some new ones as well as being inspired by the likes of Jimmy Wales, Stephen Heppell, Evan Roth, David Puttnam and Tim Rylands.  It was a lot to think about. All the videos of the talks can be found here

Bett was slightly different again the best bits of BETT were for me the networking around the show and at the Teach Mett on the Friday night it is truly inspirational being connected with such amazing people.

I have also failed miserably at my 365 project – however I did re -start it on the 4oth day as seeing as this is my 40th year – thought that would be ok.  So not failing just not completing the whole project. Failing did not put me off it has just made me more determined to do a photo a day for the rest of the year!

So what is coming up – lots!!! There has been lots of talk recently about both the purpose of education and what should be taught in schools – on Thursday night there was a great debate on twitter as part of #ukedchat on the purpose of education hosted by Doug Belshaw and one of the guys behind purpos/ed.  If you have not already looked at this – you should! There have already been some great posts in 500 words on the purpose of education.

Along with this is the National Curriculum Review – Graham Brown Martin is hosting an event in London on 3rd March debating ‘What should be taught in schools’  this looks like it should be an interesting night with speakers Toby Young, Katherine Birbalsingh, Donald Clark, Dr Ralph Townsend, Tristram Shepard and me.  There are also events planned in Chesterfield and Newcastle. More information can be found on the wiki, with the hashtag for the event #ncr11.

Interesting times lie ahead – will you be part of the conversation?