Category Archives: Challenge levels

Be a Wildlife Detective

Hopefully you have read the Spicy task on the grid about tracking animals. I know my children have been more vigilant during our walks and spotted nature changing around. We have also been lucky to spot lots of wild animals so I know some of you will be interested to identify what we see. Choose 1 or more tasks below for your home learning.

Sometimes the animals are well hidden or run away at the sign of any humans so we have to look closely for evidence. Here is some evidence we have found in our local woodlands.

Task 1 – Can you guess what we spotted?

Here are some hints –

https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2020/02/animal-tracks-id-kids/

Task 2 – Find some prints

Sometimes the animals leave tracks behind and this resource from the RSPB is very interesting, it shows the actual size of animal prints you might find.

animaltracks_tcm9-133380

Look closely on your next walk  for animal tracks and take a photo or draw an image of what the print looks like, estimate the size so you can compare it with others. Has anyone been lucky and spotted any footprints?

If you have been like us and not spotted any tracks this resource might might help you spot some other animals that like to hide away.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/globalassets/downloads/wildchallenge/activity-sheets/english/770-0214-18-19-wild-challenge_nature-detective_ss.pdf

Draw a picture or write a short report on your animal findings, can you accurately identify the animal? How did you do this?

Task 3 – Make an animal tracker

If you want to take this activity further you could try making an animal tracker to see if anything visits your garden. See the link below.

https://www.rspb.org.uk/fun-and-learning/for-families/family-wild-challenge/activities/tracks-and-signs/?channel=paidsearch&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI-OzysqON6QIVRNTeCh3lJAX3EAMYASAAEgK2ZPD_BwE

Good luck detectives, remember to share any photos or work with your teacher or leave me a comment below with your guesses for Task 1.

Well-Being Wednesday: Mr.Mutch vs Mr.Reid #3

In their Hardest Challenge Yet, the Teachers are Back!

Mr.Mutch vs Mr.Reid returns this week to bring you an episode inside. We understand not everyone is able to get outside as much as they would like. So, this challenge is perfect for indoors. 

This challenge needs time and patience, a perfect opportunity for you to find a quiet space to practice. It is best when you have calm breathing and you are focused. This challenge was really hard for both Mr.Mutch and Mr.Reid.
We both had to believe in ‘The Power of Yet!’ and keep trying. 
We are now on episode 3 and we are both very thankful to all the families taking part and making it a big competition in their homes. We have been sent pictures, videos and messages of all the hilarity these challenges have caused.

Enjoy episode 3 and don’t forget to message in your time and find out where you place on the leaderboard next week!

Literacy: MILD: Bee Fact Files with Special Guests!

It’s time to get writing!

I have enlisted the help of some amazing bee keepers to help us with this grid task. From just a small request they have produced an amazing amount of videos filled with lots of facts for us to listen to!

To help with writing the factfile there is also the youtube link on the grid. In the sway at the beginning you will see a checklist you can use when watching the videos. When we are listening out for facts it is always a good idea to know what you are listening out for.


Please enjoy the interview with our special guest! 

Bee Keepers Go LIVE!


Are you ready to start writing? 

In your journal you will need a blank page.

You can save the top of the page for when we do our picture and labelling next week.

You can choose how many sentences filled with facts you would like to write.

If you are describing the bee…. your sentence may start with.

It has… 

The bee has… 

If you are telling us about where it lives… your sentence may start with.

It lives in… 

The bee stays in… 

You can find bees in… 

 

If you are telling us about what the bee does… your sentence may start with.

The bee will… 

The bee must… 

Bees can… 

If you are telling us some interesting facts… I’m going to leave that to you as you might find a fact our bee keepers or myself have never heard of.

Enjoy writing your factfiles with the help of our Amazing Bee Keepers! 

V E Day Words Sharing the Learning

Good morning Everyone!

Thank you all for taking part in our V E Day Words activity.

Please play the music at the start of the sway and look through everyone’s fantastic contributions

Music from Miss Grant Music Teacher at Peterhead Academy .

Feel-Good Friday – Ms Rees

Good morning, everyone.

I hope you have enjoyed taking part in the challenges and activities that we suggested for you this week.  I thought we could round off the week with a different kind of Feel-Good Friday challenge.

Click on my Sway to find out more.  You can probably guess what it is from the picture!  Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.

IMPORTANT :  Please don’t take part in this challenge without an adult’s permission and supervision.

I find cooking very therapeutic – especially making bread, even though I’m not very good at it!

Have a lovely weekend and I’ll see you all again next week.  😊

Mr.Mutch’s Digital Skills Quest #2

Lets get ready for Episode 1!

So last term I started a new challenge for myself to learn some digital skills to take back to the classroom. I decided to do this through making a web-show that we can all take part in creating.

This is a project that we could easily continue when we are back to school, learning about screen-writing, story-boarding, filming and editing in a club.

I’ve already started my learning journey by producing ‘Mr.Mutch vs Mr.Reid which I think has been quite popular. For Mr.Reid and myself to communicate so far away we had to make codes and notes that we could understand. So that was my first step into story boarding. You can see in the sway below a sneak peak of some of the story boards from the episode. Can you match the drawings to the shot in the final video?

You can follow the sway below to get and update and find out what the first episode is going to be about with the first roll.

It’s going to be a wild story as I’m going to have to get my thinking hat on. I’ll be in charge of the first 3 cubes but you have to tell me what I should do to finish the story.


I asked you last time to create for me a logo for the Web Show. I have a few in but would like a larger group to feature in the opening titles.

Here is the task from last time:

So Lets find out about the show…

A synopsis:

Imagine the Magic Key from Biff, Chip and Kipper, mixed with Jumanji, add a dash of bedtime stories, all told through story cubes and you will have my idea of the Web Show.

A boy receives a strange package in the mail, it has an oddly written letter and a bag full of cubes. The cubes all have a variety of different symbols on them, they are Story Cubes. When he rolls the cubes, the symbols that are on top will become the story that he is sucked into (just like the magic key stories). The cubes will lead him on an eventful adventure until he returns home. Each adventure will be different as you never know how the cubes will roll.

6 cubes will be rolled each time, an episode will cover the first three cubes. It will be your task to look at the remaining cubes and write the second half of the story. It will be up to me to choose one or combine a few ideas and film the next episode. These stories can be as imaginative as possible as it will be up to me to figure out how to bring the story to life learning new digital skills along the way while staying at home.

The Web-Show will be called ‘CUBES’

Your first task  is to design for me the logo of the show, something that I will use in the title sequence.

Your Success Criteria

  • It must include the name ‘Cubes’
  • It must relate to the synopsis you have been given
  • It must be colourful
  • It must be readable and viewed easily at a glance

If you can think of a tagline for the show, that would also be great to add to your design. Or you can try to create an animation for the title sequence on Scratch Jr.

I look forward to see your logos.

Numeracy: MILD – Data Handling – Looking at your work!

LOOK AT YOUR HARD WORK!

Thank you for sharing your efforts.

Now in this blog post I want you to look at these pupils efforts and answer the following questions.

This is called Data Analysis, we are reading the information that has been gathered.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The Questions

1. How many more people have a pet than those who do not have a pet? 

2. How many people submitted an answer in ‘how many pets do you have? 

3. What type of pet is in most of our homes?

4. What  4 animals can add up to give the same value of Cat (8) in what type of animal? 

5. In how many pets, which two amounts got the same amount of votes? 

6. In the Ice-Cream Graph, what is the difference in votes between Vanilla and Mint? 

7. In the Teddy Bar Chart, what bar colour is the small teddies?

Enjoy using your classmates work to answer the questions above. Remember to explain how you found your answer to a family member. What are you looking at closely on the graphs/charts?