We Love the wii :-)

Future Directions in Literacy Conference – Sydney University

I have used the wii in my classroom quite a lot over the past two years, here are notes on a number of games I have used  with my Stage 3 (Years 5 & 6 ) class.

Pwii – Tennis

Here’s a blog post my class wrote when we used the wii for our PE lessons.

 

We have finally started our “PWii” lessons. We call them PWii (rather than PE – physical education) because we are using the Wii to play tennis.

                                              Sandy Tennis 2

 

 

 

Each group of students has written up a lesson on a tennis skill, and they teach the rest of the class how to do the skill. We play outside using a wide range of bats and racquets to learn the skills we need to play inside on the Wii.

Tennis skills 1           Tennis skills 2        Tennis skills 3

 

 

 

Each pair plays the Wii in the classroom, and we choose the “best of 3 games” option. When everyone has had a turn we will each play other students and have a “Round Robin” tournament.

                              Playing Wii         Playing Wii 2  

 

 

 

We hope to put together either a wiki of our work or at least a page to show you what we’ve been up to  :smile:

                                                     You win     

 

 

 

wii Tennis was the first experience I had with using the wii in the classroom. The class was really excited about using the wii as no-one had one at that time and so enthusiasm was at an all time high!

The game linked into the curriculum through English (Talking & Listening, Reading and Writing) as well as PE: 

  • we researched the types of PE skills necessary to play tennis
  • divided these up and pairs or trios of students then devised lessons to teach the skills to the rest of the class
  • together we used the internet to locate some appropriate warm ups, stretches and cool downs to use at the beginning and end of the lessons.
  • we located videos of how to perform the skills in tennis so that the students knew what they were to teach
  • students wrote up their notes into lesson plans
  • talking and listening skills and strategies were discussed with the class and a set of “Super Speakers” and “Great Listeners” charts were constructed to remind students of the expectations of the groups when students were teaching lessons
  • small groups of students taught these skills over a period of 3 weeks out in the playground
  • inside, the wii was set up and groups of students rotated through it playing tennis  – to get the feel for the game and the skills they were teaching
  • after all the students had taught their lessons we arranged a tennis tournament inside the classroom, using the wii

 

Mario and Sonic at the Olympics

It was a bit of a surprise to find ourselves using this game for poetry! However, a stand out of the game were the different characters and their individual responses to winning or losing the athletic events. Each of the characters were different colours and we discussed how the colours reflected each character’s personality.

Then students thought about the colours themselves, and how each colour looked, felt, smelled, the emotions it evoked, and even the tastes it reminded us of.

Lastly we put both aspects together and wrote poems that showed how the colour and the character  linked together to really show what the characters were like.

 

My colour jumps with joy and relief!

My colour sounds like a creaky hall way.

My colour feels optimistic.

My colour feels like the mysterious night sky

 

 

My colour is dark as the night sky.

My colour sounds like storms on a rainy day.

My colour is as evil as the grim reaper.

My colour feels like a touch of death.

My colour is the colour of horror.

My colour tastes like a shadow waiting to be unleashed.

My colour smells like darkness.

My colour is mysterious.

  

My colour is black.

My character is Shadow.      

Latika

 


 

 

My colour feels like the mysterious night sky

 

2 thoughts on “We Love the wii :-)

  1. Robyn C
    Thanks so much for your comment – it means a lot!
    I’m quite embarrassed that I haven’t blogged for such a long time, but with so much enthusiasm and positive blogging from 6V I think I will get back to it very soon!
    Hope you enjoy your blogging with Mrs Vass.

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