Over the last two weeks, using Dyson Foundation Design Process Box, we looked into the job of Design Engineers. We had a chance to find out what characteristics help Design Engineers be successful and took on a role of Design Engineers and came up with our own designs.
This week, from 7th – 11th December 2020, is #CSEdWeek (Computer Science Education week). This year’s theme for #CSEdWeek is #CSforSocialJustice i.e. using computer science to help humans from all backgrounds, focusing on equal rights for everyone. We had fun coding in Minecraft, using A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) to help solve an environmental problem i.e. stopping the spread of wild forest fires.
We have also been busy designing our own Christmas-themed Google Doodles and animating them in Scratch. We hope to share them and more STEM-themed Christmas learning with you soon.
This week and last week we analysed two beautiful poems about the changing seasons, called “Something Told the Wild Geese” and “Snow Spell”. We used our inference skills to analyse the imagery used by the writers, and our sequencing skills to explore the structure and format of each poem. We listened to a song based on one of the poems too. We worked together to complete and self assess our work.
This week we had a chance to check how important it is to wash our hands properly. After rubbing some Bug Lotion on our hands, we have checked how germs would spread- our hands glowed under the UV light. We then split into two groups to test what is more effective: washing hands with soap and water or hand sanitising. The results were clear… Wash your hands with soap and water whenever possible.
Wow! What a brilliant time we had this afternoon analysing our pressed flowers and leaves on a light box. 🍁 🌹 it was so interesting observing the changes that have taken place over the three weeks they have been pressed in our flower presses.
Once we got outside we continued with the theme of observing as we collected and observed leaves. We then went on to record information on our leaves in detailed diagrams and after swapping diagrams with others went on to analyse and identify specific leaves.
We created a mind-map of the maths activities we planned to do during Maths Week 2020, and created a video of our work (unfortunately it’s too big to upload here, but you can view it on our Google Classroom, if you have permission to access it).
We enjoyed discussing together the joy of growing plants and flowers today.
We then went outside and found more joy in the beautiful myriad of colours we can see around us in the form of leaves. Working in pairs we collected lots of leaves and created some brilliant patterns, pictures and shapes.
While we were collecting we noticed how beautiful the leaves are when you hold them up to the sun, it makes them look almost transparent.
Another discovery we made was a group of leaves where caterpillars were forming.
What a busy day we had outside today, experiencing almost every weather imaginable too!
We explored the Eco garden searching for flowers and leaves to press and went on to spend time collecting adjectives to describe the garden and everything we saw there.
After that we explored more in the forest area and learned about alliterative adjectives. Finally we used some sticks to do some length comparisons and created some super symmetrical nature pictures.
What a fabulous afternoon we enjoyed learning all about the properties of quadrilaterals.
In our groups we discussed and discovered lots of similarities and differences in the lengths of sides and angles in each of the shapes we made using a variety of materials. it was so much more interesting doing it like this rather than simply using a ruler and drawing shapes in our jotters. 😊
It was also easy to see where we went wrong creating our shapes and to make changes to fix them. Have a look at the shape made of shells that says ‘square’ below…is there something wrong with it? How could it be fixed?
We had a great time competing against each other in a rainbow sticks place value challenge game.
After that we used our mapping skills to identify markers on a map and then find shapes at these markers too.
We all need to work on listening carefully and following instructions to make sure we complete our tasks well and get organised and back to class on time too!
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