Aim
To teach the class to control the Pixie by giving direct commands.
Our story was based on the song of 'Old Macdonald had a Farm'. The Pixie was dressed as a tractor to travel around the farm. |
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The four learning activities were related to these Foundation Stage Objectives.
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| Lesson 1 |
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| Learning objective |
To introduce the programmable Pixie and explain the simple commands |
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| Resources |
Charged Pixie/s. |
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| Introduction/Revision |
Discuss programmable toys. Explain that the Pixie can be given instructions. Explain the basic commands |
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| Key Vocabulary |
Instructions, commands forward, back, turn |
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| Main Activities |
The children sit in a circle, the teacher demonstrates a simple sequence to make the Pixie reach a given point. Discuss simple positional language. Children take turns to experiment with Pixie. A simple task is to get the Pixie to move to a certain place on the playground or floor.
Predict how far the Pixie will move with a given number of presses of the forward arrow. How can we get it to turn? |
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| Plenary |
Revise main instructions for Pixie and what they have learnt about giving instructions to a programmable toy. |
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| Evaluation |
This was the first time the class had seen a Pixie. They were all very excited and keen to participate, although some were reluctant to touch it at first. They liked the noises the Pixie made and wanted to know how it worked. They referred to its brain! Some quickly understood about putting instructions into the Pixie to make it work and were able to put this into words in the plenary. |
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| Lesson 2 |
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| Learning objective |
To revise work covered in Lesson 1. To determine and support the level of understanding. |
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| Resources |
Charged Pixie/s. |
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| Introduction/Revision |
Revise commands. Introduce the Pause button. |
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| Key Vocabulary |
Instructions, commands forward, back, turn, wait. memory |
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| Main Activities |
The children sit in a circle, the teacher demonstrates a simple sequence which included the wait command.
Children take turns to program the robot to travel to the person next to them in the group. To include wait for so many seconds when it reaches the person. This can then be extended by teacher selecting quieter or less able children to program Pixie to reach a certain person in the group.
Children predict the commands required and then try them out. Explain how to use CM to clear memory. |
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| Plenary |
Discuss and review instructions and buttons for Pixie and how we can change the commands |
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| Evaluation |
It was very pleasing to see how much they had remembered. Some very shy children were keen to participate. One child said, "It is remembering everything and we could clear it just like a calculator." |
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| Lesson 3 |
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| Learning objective |
To use previous understanding to develop more complex programming. |
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| Resources |
Charged Pixie/s. Obstacles e.g. book boxes. |
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| Introduction/Revision |
Revise commands covered in previous lessons and ensure that they are understood. |
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| Key Vocabulary |
Instructions, obstacles, avoid |
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| Main Activities |
This is the last 'practice lesson' so we need to encourage more forward thinking. Show children that it is important to plan ahead when navigating a route.
Set out the obstacles and explain that Pixie has to find its way around them without bumping into anything. Encourage full use of the keys. Ask children to navigate around the obstacles, taking turns to add to the Go memory. Restart the Pixie at the home point before adding commands. Alternatively, clear the memory at each obstacle.
Ask the children: what does the Pixie need to do now?
What happened? Why? What should have happened? |
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| Plenary |
Check understanding by programming an incorrect sequence around the blocks. Can children say what changes are required? |
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| Evaluation |
Children adore using the Pixie. This helps in encouraging them to handle it with loving care! They found estimation difficult, and need more experience to develop understanding. |
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| Lesson 4 |
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| Learning objective |
To use previous understanding to develop idea of Pixie's visit to Old McDonald's farm. |
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| Resources |
Charged Pixie/s. construction Lego, Duplo, tractor template for Pixie, toy farm animals and fences. Computer with Internet access. |
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| Introduction/Revision |
Explain that Pixie is visiting Old McDonald's farm. Sing The song. On line version
Discuss what we need, do we have it? Is it practical? |
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| Key Vocabulary |
In front, behind, beside, next to. |
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| Main Activities |
Split the class into four groups. Dress the Pixie as a tractor.
Groups 1 and 2 build houses, barns etc.
Groups 3 and 4 put up fences and add animals to fields.
(The group activities are open ended to encourage free discussion, decision making and cooperation amongst the children.)
Each group takes turns to program Pixie to visit the farm animals as we all sing the song. |
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| Plenary |
Discuss the activity. How could we improve our programming, or the farm layout. What problems did we face? How did we overcome these? |
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| Evaluation |
The children developed their inter-personal skills as much as their ICT skills. There was a great deal of talk about building the farm and where to put animals, buildings and barns. Because of the previous lessons they understood how to lay out the farm so that the Pixie could reach all parts. |
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Overview
I had recently purchased the Pixie (from Swallow Systems) and therefore none of the children had ever worked with one before. I feel that it was very important to take things slowly so that they became very familiar with the buttons and the way it works. The three introductory lessons proved invaluable and I shall certainly use this as a method of introducing future projects.
I didn't use a Pixie play mat as I feel this would restrict the size and make it difficult to use with a whole class. However for use with a group the play mat would ensure that the working area is kept small and does not overflow into other groups' space.
This proved to be an excellent way of teaching directional and positional vocabulary. Every child wanted to take part and was useful in encouraging the quieter children to talk and contribute to the activity. In fact we all want to do it again! |
