Iron Man Roamer Project

While the imaginative context ensures cross-curricular opportunities, the Swanscombe project has a strong Numeracy focus. Below, Ann sets the scene, discussing the learning needs of three ability groups in her Year 2 class.
Click here to see the pictorial record of the project.

'The Iron Man' by Ted Hughes provided the starting point and inspiration for the beach plan upon which the Roamer walks to find the parts of the Iron Man. As a Design and Technology project, the class investigated ways of converting the Roamer into the Iron Man.

All the children had used the Roamer and were quite blasé about seeing it trundle about the room daily. Whole-class activities enabled new concepts to be introduced. Group tasks reflect the wide-ranging needs of the class for further support and extension.

Group work has been carried out during normal daily numeracy activities every morning, after the initial, whole-class sessions. I have mainly used the twenty minutes before lunch, which is just about long enough to give each group a reasonable slice of Roamer work.

Group 1
Children in the lowest ability group need support in counting and matching one-to-one, and practical work on number bonds to ten. They have used:
a number track from 0 to 10
a giant die
sequencing cards with Roamer instructions

We walked along the track ourselves prior to Roamer work. I plan to extend with the use of a longer track, two dice and coloured pens, to show how numbers grow and get smaller. One die will be thrown to go forward, the other to go backward. We'll call it the 'Backward Forward' game. The pens will be used to make a trace on the number track, showing the Roamer's moves.

Group 2
This group is currently working on early tens and units. Some children are anxious about Mathematics. My aim has been to boost confidence and reinforce the use of number bonds to 20.

The above activity has been extended with a longer number track. I have encouraged children to predict where the Roamer will end up. We keep scores for the almost right or correct guesses and call this the 'Guess-Yes!' game.

Group 3
These children are confident manipulators of number bonds; they enjoy problem solving and are beginning to use multiplication and division to aid their work.

They need encouragement to think through their strategies and to keep a written record of Roamer movements. Co-ordinates have been introduced and the class as a whole has discussed the easiest way to record Forward, Backward, Left and Right. The 'beach' plan has provided an obstacle course for them to tackle. They have broken down the moves into steps, and programmed the Roamer. It is important for them to evaluate what happens.

This group is now keen to draw shapes and program music on the Roamer!

Whole class activities
The class has participated in many games using movement along and around the classroom. The 'Turning Game' has made most of the children familiar and confident with the use of quarter, half, three-quarter and full turns to the right and left.

The class have also played the 'Robot Game', a variation of hide and seek. One child gives instructions to another to move, robot-like, toward a hidden object. The game has made words such as 'forward', 'backward', 'quarter' and 'turn' a common language for all.

I plan to introduce right angles for the first time and help the children to record this onto paper after seeing the 'Iron Man' turn on the track. My class has found it difficult to incorporate a forward movement and a turn clearly into a program. I intend to use an umbrella with the different turns clearly marked upon it. We are going to fix the pen onto the side of the Roamer to further record this.