FANTASTIC OCARINA MUSIC SITE!

Mbalu has found a brilliant ocarina songbook site where you can find hundreds of ocarina tunes that have been sent in by ocarina players around the world.

You can find the songbook at:
http://composer.songbirdocarina.com/

Simply click on a letter to go to the songs which have titles which begin with that letter.

There's also some interesting facts about the ocarina on the following link:
https://www.songbirdocarina.com/


Thank Mbalu!

Ocarina music - well sort of...

I've had a look for some examples of the ocarina pieces we have been learning and came across some interesting videos:

First up - a man playing a two part canon of Twinkle Twinkle with a video of himself. Only one difference is that his ocarina is made of a carrot. Yes you did read that correctly - a carrot:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=HMUAm2akrIA

And for those of you practising Kumbaya, here it is being played on a real ocarina:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Lkuj9uwXstw

Happy practising!

Rockin' around the Christmas Tree

Here's the link to the song we will be singing at the Christmas performance:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=IiHoKMTHjZg

Practise it at home and try to learn all of the words ready for next Monday.

Times Table Time Trial!

Answer as many times tables as you can in the time allowed on the following link:

http://www.markhanley.co.uk/tables/timetrial/

Can you get onto the high score table?

Those maths coordinates games

As promised, here's the links to those Billy Bug coordinates games:

Firstly, Billy Bug 1 - for coordinates in the first quadrant:

http://www.classbrain.com/artgames/publish/billy_bug_math_coordinates_game.shtml

and Billy Bug 2 - for all four quadrants:

http://www.classbrain.com/artgames/publish/billy_bug2_math_coordinates_game.shtml

While we're at it, here's a link to a game to help you practise finding the perimeter of various shapes:

http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/perimeter_and_area/index.html

Enjoy!

A big welcome to Princess May children!

A big hello to the children of Princess May Primary School.

This blog will be used to share information with Year 6 children and their parents. Things like maths games, useful websites and maybe a few extra homework activities - all linked to what we're doing in school. It's also a place where I can post examples of really good work.

If you have any suggestions as to what you'd like to see on the blog - or maybe some great websites that you want me to link to, then let me know by sending me a comment.

In the mean time, take a look at some of the posts from my last year at Highbury Quadrant Primary School by clicking on the links on the right. Try some of the activities and let me know how you get on.

I hope you enjoy using it!

Goodbye and good luck!

To all of Year 6,

Good luck at secondary school and thank you for making this year so special for all of the adults who taught you. Thank you also for your wonderful presents.

Have a brilliant summer and stay safe. Pop back and say hello every now and again. I'll be at Princess May, but I'll be popping back too to hear all about how you've been getting on. It's been an honour and a privilege to teach you throughout your Highbury Quadrant Primary School years.

For 6Q, as requested, here's the photo you sneakily took without me knowing so you could put it in my fantastic scrapbook:

G O O D B Y E A N D G O O D L U C K !

New HQ Film Club blog

Year 6 have been so busy making stop frame animations that we've decided to create an entirely new blog to showcase them.

It's called Highbury Quadrant Primary School Film Club and it can be found here:

http://hqfilmclub.blogspot.com

The first films on the site are all animations and are made using the excellent AnimatorDV Simple+ animation program. We used Windows Movie Maker to put the scenes together, add narration and create the final movie files. For sound editing and sound effects, we used a combination of Goldwave and Audacity. All of the special sound effects were downloaded from the Freesound Project.

So now you know that, there's nothing to stop you downloading the programs and having a go for yourself!

Ocarina shop

Well done all for your brilliant ocarina performances in assembly and at the international evening!

Just in case you want to take your ocarina playing to the next level, here's a link to the ocarina shop where you can buy book 2 (or books 1, 2, 3 ,4!) and maybe even a 6-hole ocarina. Notice that you can buy the books complete with CDs so you can play along.

The link is:
https://vault1.secured-url.com/ocshop/ocshop.asp

Let me know how you get on:)

Plasticine animations

We've had a busy day getting to know the AnimatorDV Simple stop frame animation software. Take a look at three of the short films that we've made:

Gooooaaaalll - by Euan and Moadh:

World Cup Wonder by Taleb, Wang Yee and Jerome:

Rocket man by Moadh:

All you need is a webcam and the AnimatorDV program. If you would like to try out the software - the good news is IT'S FREE!! You can get it from this link:
http://animatordv.com/download7

You will need to copy in the serial number from the download link when you first run the software.

Happy animating!

Two point perspective tutorial

Here's a link to the two-point perspective tutorial some of us looked at today:

http://www.ider.herts.ac.uk/school/courseware/graphics/two_point_perspective.html

Have a go and see what you come up with. Try shading in your 3D creations to make them look like light is shining on them.

Good luck!

Microsoft Office for Students

For those children who do not have Microsoft Office at home, here is a link to a website where you can buy it comparitively cheaply (around £45 - normally £300!):

http://www.software4students.co.uk/Microsoft_Office_Professional_Plus_2007-details.aspx

The version that is linked to above is the 'Pro' version which includes Publisher so is definitely worth having.

Of course, if you don't want to pay for an office suite then the Open Office set of programs does a brilliant job for free:

http://download.openoffice.org/index.html

Apostrophes

Hi year 6,
It's Ms Jones, back on the blog. I've noticed that lots of you are making mistakes when using apostrophes to shorten words. Try this game again to revise how to use them.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/words/grammar/punctuation/apostrophes/game.shtml
You can decrease the time limit to make it harder.

Plate tectonics

As promised, here's some links for you to use to research plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis:

http://www.sio.ucsd.edu/voyager/earth_puzzle/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4126809.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5194316.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4972366.stm

Here's an interesting animated gif showing the movements of the continents over the last 750 million years or so. The number in the bottom left corner tells you how many millions of years ago it is:

http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/geology/anim3.html

Send a comment to let me know some of the fascinating facts that you find out!

MAKE A MILLION!

In our maths investigation this morning, we were substituting numbers for letters thus:

a=1, b=2, c=3, d=4 ... z=26

We then found the 'value' of a word by finding the product of all of its letters.
So the value of 'BAD' would be:

B x A x D = 2 x 1 x 4 = 8

Our task was then to try to find a word with a value that is as close as possible to 1,000,000.

The top three were:

1. Dayana, Raneem, Lyna with 'JAPANESE' (1,064,000)
2. Kelsen with 'KELSEN' (877,800)
3. Euan with 'DONKEY' (1,155,000)

---------------------------------------------------------
Postscript:

As you know, computers are very good at solving problems like this!
I knocked up a quick program that searches a huge list of over six hundred thousand different words and looks for any that have a word value near to 1,000,000 (plus or minus 5,000).

Here are the results:
(Can you spot the closest one??)

Amyris = 1000350
BARTNIK = 997920
BOYSEN = 997500
CARLISI = 997272
CURING = 1000188
DISHMAN = 995904
DRIVEN = 997920
FRANKEL = 997920
HENRIK = 997920
HENRIKA = 997920
HORNACK = 997920
Henrik = 997920
KILLEN = 997920
KIMMEL = 1003860
KUPOR = 997920
MOORS = 1000350
MOPPED = 998400
MOROS = 1000350
Merise = 1000350
Mieres = 1000350
Moros = 1000350
PACKETS = 1003200
PINKIE = 997920
PLUMS = 995904
RIGGIN = 1000188
SHELVE = 1003200
SHOVED = 1003200
SIEMER = 1000350
SLUMP = 995904
SOWASH = 996360
SOYBEAN = 997500
STEEGO = 997500
STOPKA = 1003200
UTSEY = 997500
VARIANT = 997920
Virden = 997920
WALTMAN = 1004640
budlike = 997920
chuckle = 997920
clinked = 997920
comers = 1000350
cozies = 1000350
curing = 1000188
dogeys = 997500
driven = 997920
helves = 1003200
inhive = 997920
keslep = 1003200
lumps = 995904
lurked = 997920
misere = 1000350
moors = 1000350
mopped = 998400
nervid = 997920
pinkie = 997920
plums = 995904
pucker = 997920
remise = 1000350
rooms = 1000350
sercom = 1000350
shelve = 1003200
shevel = 1003200
shoved = 1003200
shows = 996360
slump = 995904
specked = 1003200
spoked = 1003200
stogy = 997500
suety = 997500
sulks = 1000692
swosh = 996360
typey = 1000000
uncini = 1000188
uncubic = 1000188
verdin = 997920
==========
Total matches: 75

More logo piccies!

Here's another one from Raneem. Can you figure out how she got the doughnut shape?

Lyna's amazing logo image

Here's Lyna's fantastic logo pattern - with very clever use of the 'fill' command and setfloodcolor:
Fantastic use of colour, Lyna! I think a few people will be asking you how to do that :) Well done!

Raneem's superb logo pattern!

Here's Raneem's excellent logo pattern:


Looks very interesting indeed - I'm guessing two loops are involved here? Perhaps you could let us know just how you achieved it, Raneem. Well done!

Improved Logo program

I've managed to find a newer and improved version of the MSWLogo program that we've been using in school. It's called FMSLogo and it can be downloaded from:

http://qurl.com/tdphr

It's the same program but has much better help pages which work in Vista, and the 'To' mode (the little window that pops up when you use the 'to' keyword) is bigger and easier to edit in.

If you are pleased with your logo drawings or maybe even some image manipulations, then save them and email them to:

so I can have a look. If they're really good then I'll post them up here!
(Remember, to save your logo drawing, go to Bitmap -> save as and select the 'GIF' filetype then choose a filename).

Macromedia Fireworks

Here's the link to the trial edition of Fireworks - the image manipulation software that we have been using in ICT:

http://www.soft32.com/Download/free-trial/Macromedia_Fireworks_MX/4-351-1.html

Download and install and get creating!

MSW Logo software

As promised - here's the link to the Logo program that we used in maths this week for repeating patterns:

http://www.softronix.com/download/mswlogo65.exe

I was pleasantly surprised by just how much you remembered from your year 4 ICT unit! Remember - use the 'Help' section of the program to help you to remember some of the trickier commands.

To get you started, see if you can figure out what this script will do:

to poly :sides :size
repeat :sides[fd :size rt (360/:sides)]
end
(Remember that a word that starts with a ':' is a variable which can be used instead of a number)

Then type in...
poly 6 200
poly 10 50

Ok - that was a bit nasty! Here's something interesting - you know how to draw, say, a twelve sided shape:

repeat 12[fd 200 rt 30]

When logo draws the shape, it turns through 360 degrees in 12 steps - so 30 degrees each step. Now try the same but instead of turning 30 degrees, turn 180 degrees MINUS 30 degrees instead. So:

repeat 12[fd 200 rt 150]

You end up with a nice effect! Can you do a 20 sided one? This doesn't seem to work with all shapes. Maybe needs some further investigation!


Have fun!

Answers to practice tests

As promised, here are the answer scans for the practice tests that you have been doing this week:

www.hqprimary.co.uk/sats/answers.zip

They are in .zip format so you'll need to unzip them before you can view them.
Let me know if you have any problems.

There are a couple of papers missing I have just discovered; apologies for this!

Happy Holidays!

Make sure you get a good rest and have lots of fun over the holidays. Also make sure that you make some time to study. Remember - these two weeks could make the difference between a level 3 and a level 4, or even between a level 4 and a level 5!

You might want to look at these sites to help you with your revision:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/interactive/index.htm
http://www.mathszone.co.uk

I'll have a look for some more over the hols and might just post a few up here.

Don't forget to post a comment on the blog if you need some help - somebody will post one back to give you some advice.

Stay safe and have fun!

Revisewise website

Just in case you've forgotten - here's the link to the BBC Reviswise website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/

Happy revising!

That seed dispersal website...

We have been looking at plants and different ways that their seeds are dispersed. Very usesful for SATs revision and quite interesting too:

http://www.mbgnet.net/bioplants/adapt.html

Kestrel Class Wenger Games

I have uploaded Kestrel Class' Wenger's Cannonball Catastrophe games to the following link:
http://www.markhanley.co.uk/gamemaker/kestrel/wenger/6Qgames.zip

It's a 4MB zip file so you'll need to unzip it. It contains all of your current games in progress. You might like to fiddle around with them at home.

You will notice however that your trial version of GameMaker will tell you that there is an error if you try to run a game that has explosions and other special effects in it. This is because these are only allowed in the PRO version.

To get around this, you will have to delete the actions containing special effects, or beg a kind soul at home to fork out £10 for the PRO version.

(Note to parents: Sorry if this ends up costing you money AGAIN!)

Children in Osprey Class - let me know if you would like me to upload any of your games and I will do so.

GameMaker download link

A reminder for those who requested it - here's the link to download the GameMaker program:
http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker/try

Don't forget - we only have so much ICT time to learn to program games. Now is the time for you to have a look at some of the tutorials online and teach yourself a bit more. You can find the tutorials at:
http://www.yoyogames.com/make/tutorials

Who knows where it could take you?!

If you want to be able to use the special effects that we did today then you'll need the PRO version which is £10.

Good luck! And remember - if you get stuck then post a comment to the blog and somebody will help.

Link for COMIC LIFE 30 day demo

For those of you who want to get to know our new Comic authoring software, there is a demo (it will stop working after 30 days unless you buy it). It can be downloaded by clicking on:
http://plasq.com/download/comiclife-win.exe

Note that you must either have Windows XP (service pack 1 or 2) or Vista for it to work - ask me if you are unsure of this.

Print out and bring in any comic creations that you are particularly proud of!

Fun with forces

As promised - here's the link to the game that we played at the end of science today:
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/gravity.html

Remember - both the earth's and the moon's gravity will attract the rocket. The earth's gravity is SIX TIMES STRONGER than that of the moon (or looking at it another way, the moon's gravity is one sixth that of earth).

You must use the gravitational forces as well as the strength and direction of the rocket's thrust (push force) to dock with the space station.

Good luck!

Comparing fractions!

Mr Hanley's maths group will be continuing their work with fractions this week.

Have a look at:
http://www.sums.co.uk/playground/n6a/playground.htm

This will help you to practise finding simple equivalent fractions.

Also - great to hear from Abubakar in the comments for the last two posts. Abubakar - if you would like my teaching slides for the Gamemaker lessons then pop into HQ and I'll print them for you. You'll be programming games in no time!

Game Maker

For those of you who are eager to start using your game programming skills, the GameMaker program can be downloaded for free from:

http://www.yoyogames.com/gamemaker

You will need to create an account to download the program. If you have any problem doing this then let me know.

There are loads of tutorials on the site if you want to get ahead of our ICT unit. You can also try some of the games that other people have written (the parachute one is great fun but a bit gruesome!)

Let me know how you get on!