Category Archives: Numeracy and Maths

Numeracy and Maths

Primary 7 Maths Week

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The week of the 11th September – 18th of September was Maths Week in Scotland. Our class had an excellent week taking part in lots of maths related activities.

We played in a Sumdog competition each day to try and get into the top 1000 classes. We exceeded our own expectations and came an amazing 454th place out of 4900 classes. The top three children in our class were:

  1. Aimee
  2. Joseph
  3. Beth

We also brought in our own device to use as a compass and took part in a treasure hunt activity outside using our compass app and directions to  guide us.

At the end of the week, in groups, we made up a short game to teach the P2 children. We did a carousel activity where we got the P2 children into groups and each of the P7 groups taught them a different game. It was a fun experience teaching P2!

Global Citizenship, Numeracy and Maths, Social Subjects

Community- Needs & Wants

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We explored what community means to us.  First we compared our community with a community within Morija.

We looked at a map of Barrhead and a map of Morija. We identified features on the maps

James & Ryan's Community
James & Ryan’s Community

and were surprised at how many similarities there were. We discussed how important it was for communities to have certain features such as a school, shops and health centres.

We agreed that communities are more than just a place you live in with a variety of amenities but that it was also a place where people had shared values such as respect and responsibility.

A community is a place people share and respect each other and their area. A community looks after everyone, keeps them safe and happy. Everyone is responsible for their community.  Joseph and Harley

In pairs we then created our own ‘ideal community’ using our mapping skills and based on our discussions. We then discussed the difference between wants and needs. We looked at  a variety of different resources such as water, mobile phones, toys and  classified then as  a need or a want using   a venn diagram.

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We then identified and ranked the most important ‘needs’, we all identified water as being the most important resource humans need to survive.

We are going to be  learning  about water and exploring  issues such as sustainability throughout the term.

Global Citizenship, Health and Wellbeing, Numeracy and Maths

Outdoor Learning and Active Maths

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We were challenged to ‘walk in the shoes’ of a child from Morija to help us understand the impact water shortages can have upon people.

First we were challenged to collect facts about average water consumption per person within different countries. We had to   walk for a mile to retrieve all the facts. Every time we collected a fact we had to carry another dictionary.

We discussed the activity and the possible reason behind the journey and we realised that the journey was half the distance a child from Moroja has to walk to collect water from the stream. The dictionaries symbolised education and the facts that whilst the child is collecting water they are not in school.

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Although we found the task fun because we were outside and it was active we discussed how hard it would be to do this multiple times a day and how it could affect a child’s health and well being.

 

We were then challenged to use our data handling skills to collate the data and create a graph displaying the results. We were shocked to discover that the average consumption of water in litres within the USA was 595 litres whereas in Ethiopia it was only 5litres. The UK’s rate was also very high.  We discussed how unfair this was and that the over consumption and wastage of water needs to be addressed.sam_1355 sam_1356 sam_1358

Global Citizenship, Numeracy and Maths

Water Usage Survey

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This term we have been learning about Global Citizenship and we will be exploring issues related to water.

We completed a water diary at home to identify how much water we use every day. We then calculated how many litres we used   and we were quite surprised at just how much water we use.

We compared our water usage to a child’s from Morija in Africa who only uses 18 litres a day and created a graph to display the information. The comparison graph and diary task really illustrated to us just how much water we use and indeed waste.

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graph-morija

 

We were also shocked to discover that 1 in 10 people don’t have access to clean water.

We used the issue tree to help us apply critical thinking skills to the issue and identify the roots of the problem such as ‘water wastage’, as well as the impact it can have upon others e.g. illness. We identified possible solutions to the problem. As global citizens we identified small steps we can take to address the problem, for example taking shorter showers.

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Jeanie's Issue Tree
Jeanie’s Issue Tree

We have decided to take action and raise awareness of these issues, we are going to produce eco friendly posters to highlight the issue to our peers and we are also considering other actions we can take tackle this problem.

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Numeracy and Maths, Science

Practical Maths

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We have been learning about the properties of circles. First  we folded circles into quarters to identify the mid point, we then  measured the diameter, radius and circumference using rulers and string. We discussed the results and identified that the diameter is double the size of the radius and the circumference is approximately 3 times the diameter. Next we practiced drawing circles of varying sizes using a compass and again measured the circles to  test  the       rules, D=2R,  R= 1/2 D and C= approx 3 D.

We will use these skills to create a scaled down drawing of the solar system.