Effective Use of ICT
Good Practice: Robotic Toys

Roamer Activity:

Key Focus (DO Areas):
Mathematical development
Language, literacy and communication
Knowledge and understanding of the world
Personal and social development
Creative development
Physical development

Resources:
Roamer
Soft toys
Invitations
Photographs of the soft toys
Roamer number line

Planned Outcomes:
Children should be able to:

  • Talk about their game and understand about taking turns.
  • Predict the number of Roamer spaces needed to travel to various objects (counting one to one correspondence).
  • Become aware of the different purposes for writing e.g. invitations.
  • Become aware of directional language e.g. forwards/backwards.

Productive Questions:

  • How do we tell others about a party?
  • What do we need to put on the invitation?
  • How many Roamer spaces do you think it will take to reach the toy?
  • What do we need to do to make the Roamer move?

Teacher-Directed Activity:

  • Story was read to the children of a birthday party.
  • Discussion centred around the class teddy bear’s birthday and the purpose of invitations.
  • Children decide upon invited guests and set about making and writing their own invitations.
  • The soft toys were placed on a Roamer number line and the children considered how they could deliver the invitations to the toys without having to physically move themselves.
  • The children can further use the soft toys and Roamer independently.

Pixie Activity:

Key Focus (DO Areas):
Mathematical development
Language, literacy and communication
Personal and social development
Physical development
Knowledge and understanding of the world

Resources:
Pixie
Road map
Cut out characters from Stanley’s Sticker story
Pencils and paper

Planned Outcomes:

  • To become aware of the sequence of commands when using Pixie.
  • To become aware of the distance travelled by Pixie in one movement.
  • To develop the children’s positional and directional language.
  • To create a story.

Key Questions:

  • How can we make Pixie move?
  • How many moves does Pixie need to make to reach………?
  • Which way does Pixie need to go – left/right/forwards/backwards?
  • Which character is your story about?
  • What is your character like?
  • What happens to your character?
  • Who does he meet/ or helps him?

Teacher-Directed Activity:

  • The children used the software Stanley Sticker’s Stories to discuss characters and create stories. The children chose a key character which was attached to Pixie
  • Other characters were printed out and placed on a road map
  • The children determined how to move Pixie around the map creating their story

Child-Led Activity:
The children were able to use the characters and Pixie independently to create their own stories. They were able to add other props as necessary and record their stories on paper and by using a digital camera.