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ICT Team

QCA Scheme of Work - Extending Unit 4E- Modelling Effects on Screen
Oxfordshire SoW - SuperLogo for Year 6

Year 6  Subject link - ICT - Control, D&T
With thanks to North Leigh Primary School

Overview
Introduction
Planning 
Preparatory work
Lesson 1 - Revision of logo and language, using repeats and how to build procedures
Lesson 2 - Creating crystals, flowers etc. by using a procedure. Investigating spirals
Lesson 3 - Learning how to use a variable
Evaluation - Of the three lessons
Assessment - Measured against QCA learning objectives and the NC level descriptors

Black Mouse

Introduction

 
The children used SuperLogo to do the control unit 4E so we started by revising what the children learned in that module. We wanted to move on, really practise procedure building with an emphasis on maths, shape and space but also building towards using variables in control as the next step. At the same time some groups were doing the actual control Unit so using a similar language for a different outcome. This is a six week project - post SATs to revise control and move forward, half of the class were doing Logo and half external control using buffer boxes.

Context
The children were working in a 14 station computer room. Half of the class were working on this project at any one time. The rest of the children were either building their fairground models for the control module or creating the program.

This is about three logo sessions in the computer room.

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Medium Term Plan 

QCA 4E Scheme of Work  
Oxfordshire SoW year 6 unit  
Oxfordshire Framework for a Scheme of work page 50
NC ref Learning Objective Activities Assessment Opportunities

2 b c

Revise earlier logo work

 

Children learn that variables can be used to alter the size of a shape in a procedure and make spirals

 

Review the primitives the students have learned previously (FD, BK, RT, LT, repeat) and revise the various polygons they have already constructed.

Revise building procedures to create regular polygons. Practise to create images, use pen up, pen down, change pen colour and change pen width.


Introduce the use of local variables as a way of teaching the computer the sequence of commands needed to construct a certain polygon shape with a variety of sizes.

Explain that the length of the sides will be determined in the input dialogue box which pops up in a procedure.

Teach with the projector:
to square :size
repeat 4 [fd :size rt 90]
end
The word "size" can be any word, but the same word must be used throughout the procedure. A colon must precede each occurrence of the word. A colon means "I don't want the word size, I want the value inside the container named size."

Allow students time to explore the use of local variables by "teaching" their computer various variable polygons.

Extension activity - allow children the opportunity to explore spirals.

Children present their work for display.

In the presentation work children will show their finished shapes, patterns and spirals as well as their procedures. All of their work can be assessed from the display pieces.

Also I will be with the children and will question to assess understanding.


Preparatory work

  • The teacher had prepared a help sheet for SuperLogo in case the children were struggling with any aspect of the program.  

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Lesson 1 A Revision session of all of the skills learned earlier.

  • As an introduction the teacher asked what the children remembered. As soon as the children started to recall the program they were able to jump straight to repeats and then quickly to building procedures. The pupils all went to make some procedure patterns. Whirlpool Sweetagon Jellie

  • The children pasted their images into Word and gave their work wonderful titles. They chose their own selections of the logo programming language to add to their pages.

  • Within a few minutes one of the children asked about making circles. The teacher demonstrated how to create a circle by using the projector.

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Lesson 2 Thinking about variables

Many children were really interested in making their work look exciting. They changed pencolour and widths to create really lovely shapes. Having mastered this a long time ago the revision was quick and they were ready to move on.

One group of children worked really hard to build a square spiral. They did it by trial and error and were thrilled to finish it.

Their instructions for logo read: FD 10 rt 90 FD 20 rt 90 FD 30 rt 90 FD 40 rt 90 FD 50 rt 90 FD 60 rt 90 FD 70 rt 90 FD 80 rt 90 FD 100 rt 90. They are used to writing repeats and knew there should be a way to move this into a procedure with repeats.

They began to see if there was an easier way of building the spiral other than typing each instruction in as they had done.

A demonstration of how to use the :side to denote a variable in the length of the side followed.. Children were talked through:

? to sp :side
> FD :side rt 90
> SP :side+10 rt 90
> end

What we found instantly was that it was all far too quick for the children to see what was happening. We learned to add wait 100 after every step so that we could see what the turtle was drawing.

? to SP :side
> FD :side wait 100 rt 90 wait 100
> SP :side+10 wait 100 rt 90 wait 100
> end

Everyone instantly began to experiment with using a variable for the length. There were some amazing results.
If you visit thse pages to see the children's work return by clicking on the Back button from your browser menu bar.
Sunogan Black Mouse and Squares Zappy Zap

   
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Lesson 3 Using Variables


The children who had started to investigate spirals spent this time experimenting with building spirals based on different lengths and angles. Other investigated making regular polygons with a variable in the size. This work linked back to when they had learned how to create regular polygons in year 4 but was far more exciting. There were several very successful patterns created.

If you visit these pages to see the children's work return by clicking on the Back button from your browser menu bar.

Tri-Sagon2 Turtle's Web Emerald Purplestars

 

The procedure for this is:

to SP :side
> FD :side wait 100 rt 90 wait 100
> SP :side+10 wait 100 rt 90 wait 100
> end

To set it off we typed in SP and when it asked for inputs we tried lots of different lengths - it worked best at 15.

The procedure for this one is:

to tri :side
> FD :side wait 100 rt 120 wait 100
> tri :side + 10 wait 100
> end

The side length started at 15. To make it draw a triangular spiral we had to write tri and when it asked for an input we put 15.



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Evaluation of work completed

The children worked very hard with obvious interest, enjoyment and good understanding. Most of this group of children are working confidently at level 5 in logo - "They explore the effects of changing the variables in an ICT-based model." All children copied and pasted their logo image into Word, copied and pasted their logo instructions into Word and gave their image a title. This page created in Word was for display purposes - so they were written for a specific audience, the colours and fonts matched the colours in their logo image so the finished presentation looked wonderful.
   

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 Assessment - measure against the QCA learning outcomes and NC Level Descriptors 

most children have:   created a house (shape) using repeat commands and duplicated it at least 5 times by creating a calling procedure, refined by editing (The QCA learning outcomes are not appropriate so we need to look at the NC)

(Level 4 - explored patterns and relationships and made predictions about the consequences of their predictions)
some children have progressed further and have:   created a house (shape) and accurately duplicated it  with a calling procedure so it fits exactly on the screen: investigated size and colour and added more detail with further procedures (The QCA learning outcomes are not appropriate so we need to look at the NC)

(Some more able children were working toward level 5. They created sequences of instructions to control events and understood the need to be precise when framing and sequencing instructions.)

Level 5 and 6 of the National Curriculum

Pupils select the information they need for different purposes, check its accuracy and organise it in a form suitable for processing. They use ICT to structure, refine and present information in different forms and styles for specific purposes and audiences. They exchange information and ideas with others in a variety of ways, including using e-mail. They create sequences of instructions to control events, and understand the need to be precise when framing and sequencing instructions. They understand how ICT devices with sensors can be used to monitor and measure external events. They explore the effects of changing the variables in an ICT-based model. They discuss their knowledge and experience of using ICT and their observations of its use outside school. They assess the use of ICT in their work and are able to reflect critically in order to make improvements in subsequent work.


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