Nintendogs - Oakdale Infants Project Overview

Nintendogs is a two week project that is totally cross curricular and happens in the summer term in Year 1. The children are put into groups of 5/6 and given 1 DS and 1 game. Initially the project was put together to encourage sharing and teamwork in a rather difficult Year 1 class but we soon realised there were many other positives to this project. The major thing that came out of the project was the fact that my reluctant boy writers were writing independently and through their own choice. The children are given the task of caring for a group dog. They have to choose it together, name it, feed it, walk it and clean it together. They are given 15/20 minutes twice a day to look after their dog and every time they are given their DS’s they have to fill in their Nintendog diaries describing what they have been doing for their dog. The children began to write Nintendog adventure stories and creating comic strips and pictures during free choosing and at home and bringing them in.  The children completed maths activities that link in as well as Design and Technology, Art, Science, RE and PE activities. The children particularly enjoyed the Crufts for kids activities (sports day practise)  and our Guide Dog day where we had a real guide dog brought into school to meet with the children. The children then spent the rest of the day completing different activities e.g. wearing a blindfold and trying to eat beans, get dressed, spread butter etc. or writing their name in brail after drawing a self-portrait.  We have now run the project for 3 years this year and the children who are in Reception all look forward to being able to use the DS’s and taking part in the project. Many parents have been very impressed with the level of their children’s level of enjoyment and engagement with the project and one parent last year said ‘ it’s the first time in his school life that he is coming home eager to talk about what he did at school today.’

Eyepet - Oakdale Infants Project Overview

Eyepet is a two week literacy plan to help cover fantasy settings in Year 1. It is usually completed in the autumn term and is planned to be very creative and to develop and extend the children’s imagination and use of descriptive language. There are strong cross curricular links to Art but there are also links to Design and technology and science. The children us the PS3 for about 20 Minutes if that throughout the whole project! The first thing we did was sit the whole year group down to watch the beginning sequence of the game. We asked them lots of questions around where were they?  Who was the man in the white coat? etc pausing the game each time to get the children’s responses. We let them watch up to the point where an egg is delivered and then turned the ps3 off. We went back to our classes and did a lot of work around the egg where is it from? What is inside it? How did it get here? We really focused on our question words and asked the children to write their questions on post it notes and place on large egg shaped paper. By the end of the 2 weeks the children had designed their own planets and eyepets, they had written stories and descriptions about the eyepet and its home planet and also created a detailed care plan for their eyepet including likes and dislikes and the best way to look after their eyepet.