Happy New Year!

Happy New Year to all Pothill-blog readers!

Visit at a Game Company

Mr. Jukka Miettunen
pedagogical manager

As you know games are an essential part of our school working culture. Our Kodu-clubbers have been working hard whole semester and as prize for that we made a visit to real game company. The company was Ludocraft here in the City of Oulu.

With the help of Mr. Tony Manninen, the CEO of company, the pupils and four teachers had a tour in the premises. We got to know how the professionals work and how to make a game step by step.

We talked about also what strengths do you need if you like to work in game industry. Mr. Manninen told to students about the importance of school and doing best in all subjects. If you like be a code maker, study math. If you are interested in  artistic part-draw, paint and use art as versatile as you can. The game industry needs also good scriptwriters so reading and writing is essential. When asked many of the students plan to work with games in the future. Let's see!

The teachers were amazed about the working environment or should we say learning environment in the company of creative business. There were a lot of insipring details like room for Lego-building, a 12 000 pieces puzzle, snooker table and a music studio.

The house was full of history of game making and playing. You could see the game consols, joystics and games from several decades.

The walls were full of material of ongoing and past game projects. The manager encourages the employees to write as much as possible and there were many printed books in the book shelf made by the Ludocraft employees. Nice!

What a nice ending for the semester before Christmas break. Hopefully Ludocraft people pay us a visit in spring time!

Happy Indepence Day Finland!

Happy Birthday Finland!

 


On December the 6th we celebrate the Independence Day of Finland. Finland became independent in 1917 so today is it's 96th birthday. 


Yesterday morning we took a moment at school and honored our independent country by raising the flag and singing a song called "Lippulaulu" which means "Flagsong". 

Later we also had a little ceremony inside where students from different grades sang songs and read poems about Finland. 

Kodu research

For the past weeks we have had a visitor from the University of Oulu, Mr. Fatiu Arilesere.

He is from Nigeria, studying Learning, education and technology (LET).

At home he works as math and introductory technology teacher for junior secondary school in Lagos,

He is doing his thesis about “Use of Kodu game Lab to enhance teaching and learning”. He is collecting data in our club to his study by observing and use of questionnaire.

Mr.Arilesere has discovered that the kids use the tool a lot and it has help them in collaborating and interacting and with their peers during any given individual and group task. Furthermore, it shows how much student participates and interacts with each other using this tool. On the one hand, during the observation students showed that they could learn from each by doing, viewing and asking from either their teachers or peers during a giving task. On the other hand, students showed how critical they could think during a giving task.

Therefore, the Kodu game lab has shown great potential in collaboration and interactive learning situation during his observation. 

A day at the Forest part 2.

A Day in the Forest- Project Part 2.

Mrs. Sanna Kokko, 3rd grade teacher

Mrs. Kaisa Loponen, 4 grade teacher

We went to forest in September where we planned a beginning for a story. We continued story making at school. The students worked in mixed group of 3^rd and 4^th graders. The groups started by making a storyline for the future story together. After that two students continued writing and two other students started making art of same issue. We continued working weekly and every time the groups met they presented what they have done. The writing pair consisted of 3^rd and 4^th graders  so the 4^th graders teached  ICT-skills at the same time for the youngers. Almost all groups made a rap out of their story.

            

The ready stories recorded with Lumia920 phones and we made QR-codes with www.goqr.me page. The printed codes attached to artworks and the raps got their own codes, too. Now the wall outside the classroom has fine ensemble of work for the enjoy of the whole school.

Co-operation with two age groups was seamless and they are waiting for next challenges. The goal for the whole project was to develop co-operation skills, problem solving, creativity and ICT-skills. We got part of nature science, Finnish language, art, music and P.E curriculum.

First Snow Fun

The luxus part of living in Finland is four seasons. Yesterday we got first snow. What a fun the students had when they saw snow flakes from classroom window!

Stay tuned for the next weeks when we start our new Entrepreneurship project "SnowHow"

Happy Autumn Holiday everyone!

Sports and fun

Sports and fun


Paula Vorne 2nd grade teacher


City of Oulu has been developing youth work in the past few years and students' opportunities to influence to the decisions that are made in the City council. Every year there is a big meeting where children bring ideas from every area of the city about things that they'd like to improve in their own area. There are ten groups in different parts of the city that the youth workers lead in co-operation with the schools. The schools send students from their student councils to the group. They are usually from the grades 6, 7, 8 and 9.

This week is the "Week of Good deeds" and every youth group at the city planned some kind of activity that they implemented for some other group in the area. It could be something for a kindergarten, elderly people or for one of the schools. In our area the 1st and 2nd graders of Patamäki school were the lucky ones and today the youth group came to our school and organized a sports day for our youngest students.

Group had planned six different activities where the 1st and 2nd graders tried mini bowling, some dancing and stretching and precision throwing of matches, played floor ball and a traditional Finnish outdoor game called "puuropata" = "porridge pot". They also played an outdoor game called "Steal the flag".

The event was a huge success, the older students handled the younger students' groups really well and the younger students really enjoyed the activities. Even though the students didn't know each other in advance the co-operation was effortless and when the day was over we welcomed the youth group for another visit anytime!

Track and Field Competition

Track and Field Competitions
Mrs. Sanna Kokko 3rd Grade Teacher

On September 3rd we held track and field competitions for all the students of 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th grade in Maikkula Comprehensive School. The students from the Secondary school helped teachers to organize the competitions and worked as officials. Weather that day was really sunny and the atmosphere at the competition was really good.

The 3rd and 4th grade students competed in three different sports which were 60 meters, 600 meters and long jump. The 5th and 6th grade had four different sports: 60 meters, 600 meters, shot put and turbojavelin.

Students got points from each sport according to their performance and the points were added together. After we got all the results calculated we gathered all the students to the school gym and rewarded three best girls and boys from each grade with medals. We also noticed the students who had been representing our school in the track and field and orienteering competitions of the city of Oulu.

Congratulations to all the rewarded students!

Should the Classroom be Quiet?

Should the classroom be quiet?

Teachers from Patamäki, Oulu, Finland:

Mr. Jukka Miettunen

Mrs. Paula Vorne

Mr. Timo Fordell

Mrs. Kaisa Loponen

The most common issue talked about Finnish schools at the moment is the noise in the classrooms. Teachers are complaining that they cannot concentrate in teaching and parents that their children don’t learn because of the disturbance. The sound of “shhhh” is often heard. This reminds us the times when teacher was standing in front of the class and the children were strictly listening. But world has changed, learners and learning has changed. Should we do something else in the classrooms also?

This is once again a question about how we learn, different learning styles and the working methods used in teaching and learning. Our school Patamäki Primary has used collaborative methods for several years. All the work is based on sitting in groups that change at least once a month. Teachers act as counselors of learning more than lecturers.  Vice versa the students act as active learners instead of passive responders. Once the instructions are given, materials and resources shared and technology selected, students start working in groups. The group members have different roles that vary depending on the work. We emphasize the individual, group and class accountability from the students. While working the whole school is a learning environment which we have tried to change comfortable and motivating by furnishing, colors and technology like wlan, laptops and tablets available.

Working this way the noise is there. We love the sound of children solving problems together. They talk, sometimes shout, agree and disagree. We call it “controlled positive noise”. Usually after a while they come to a mutual understanding and you can imagine the light in their eyes when they’ve discovered and learned something new together.

In every class there are pupils who prefer moving and being active while learning. It is hard to sit still. It is important that the teachers can canalize the energy right to support the working. A possibility to choose the learning environment and versatile co-operative working methods helps a lot.

You must give up complete silence because the co-operation claims talking and discussing. The perfect school day must contain also moments of silence.