Thank you to Adam, Jack and Adam, the Barrhead High School Sports Leaders who have been working with our class for the last 8 weeks during PE lessons. We have enjoyed developing our tennis and rugby skills. 🎾🏈
Stem challenges
This week we worked in groups to complete different STEM challenges. We discussed the importance of team work, communication, problem solving and creativity before completing each activity.
Challenge 1: What is the strongest boat you can make using kitchen foil and no other materials? We enjoyed testing how many marbles our boats could hold before they sank. ⛵️
Challenge 2: Using a water dropper, how many drops of water can you fit on different coins? 🪙
Challenge 3: What is the tallest tower you can make with one pack of cards? 🃏♣️ This was definitely the most challenging of them all!
Challenge 4: How long can you make a paper chain using only one sheet of paper, scissors and glue? 📄🖇
Bone bridge stem challenge
We worked in pairs to complete a Halloween STEM challenge. Our challenge was to use the resources provided to make a bone bridge that was strong enough to carry a spider (a toy spider of course!)
We used straws, lollipop sticks, string, pipe cleaners, cotton buds and sellotape. First we designed and drew a picture of our bridge on paper. Next we used the materials to build our bridge. This was challenging!
After that we presented our bone bridge to the class and tested the strength of each one. Check out some pictures from our stem challenge below. 🕷🌉
Lung models
As part of our human body topic, we learned about the lungs and the respiratory system; the group of organs and body tissues associated with breathing. We took part in different types of exercise to see the effect this would have on our breathing.
Next we made a model of the lungs using a plastic bottle and balloons.
The balloon at the bottom works like your diaphragm—a strong muscle that expands and contracts to cause your lungs to fill with air and then empty out again. The movement of the balloon matches your breathing – when you breathe in, your lungs fill with air just like the balloon inside the bottle did. That’s because the diaphragm expanded making room for air inside the lung. When you breathe out, your diaphragm contracts (or squeezes in) pushing all the air out of your lungs. 🎈🫁😮💨
Rainforest topic
As part of our rainforest topic we wanted to learn more about the animals found in the rainforest. We explored what animals are found in each layer and chose to focus on six of them; jaguar, potoo, scarlet macaw, sloth, red eyed tree frog and the emerald tree boa. We used the internet and books to research information about each animal, their diet, habitat, appearance, character and fun facts. We organised and presented all of this information in a colourful fact file using headings, subheadings, text boxes, bullet points and pictures.
We also wrote acrostic poems describing the rainforest. Zoom into our completed rainforest wall display to have a read at some of our poems and to look at our triaramas. (ARTICLE 28)
🐆🦥🦜🐍🐸
Maths Week Scotland
Maths Week Scotland is a celebration of the importance of maths in our everyday lives. As part of Maths Week Scotland we completed different activities. (ARTICLE 28)
- We used origami skills to make a fortune teller filled with lots of maths questions which we enjoyed asking one another.
- We drew one half of a symmetrical picture and swapped with a partner who completed the other half of our picture.
- We completed a coordinate grid by cutting and sticking the animals on the correct grid references.
- We took part in a maths relay race in the playground.
- We worked in teams to solve a mystery challenge.
- We drew mine craft selfies using our symmetry skills (more about this on the blog soon).
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Skeleton art
Our Science topic this term is The Human Body. We have been learning about the skeleton and its functions in the human body. (ARTICLE 28)
The three main functions of the skeleton are to protect internal organs, support the body and allow movement. We learned that muscles and joints are attached to the bones and allow movement between them. Next we will be leaning about the major organs.
We chose to make some fun skeleton art. Below are the steps we followed:
- Draw around the template of the skull.
- Draw white oval shapes to create a skeleton like neck.
- Colour these parts in using a white pastel.
- Draw the shoulders of a body at the bottom edge of the paper.
- Add detail to the skull and fill in the eyes.
- Add any accessories to your skull such as a hat, hair and earrings.
- Colour the detail using a range of coloured oil pastels.
Open afternoon
Thank you to everyone who came along to our open afternoon. We hope you enjoyed visiting our classroom and seeing what we have been learning about. Keep an eye on our blog to see how our animal symmetry art turned out. 🐾👨👩👧👦 (ARTICLE 18)
Locating rainforests
As part of our rainforest topic we have been using maps and atlases to locate the rainforests around the world. We can identify the equator, an imaginary line around the planet, where many of the rainforest lie due to the hot climate here. We also learned about the Tropic of Capricorn and the Tropic of Cancer and highlighted these on our maps. We have enjoyed reading the rainforest books which have been added to our class library this term. 🌲🍃 (ARTICLE 28)
VIP awards
Well done to Eve and Jacob for winning this months VIP assembly award for demonstrating our school value, kindness. 🏆🎖👏🏼 (ARTICLE 2)
