IDL – STEM

This week, we learned about how buildings are made in areas prone to earthquakes. We learned that buildings are constructed on top of flexible pads that isolate the foundations from the ground. When an earthquake hits, only the base moves, allowing the structure to remain steady. This effectively helps to absorb seismic waves and prevent them from traveling through the building.

We decided to try making our own structures, using spaghetti and marshmallows/playdoh. The spaghetti acts as the flexible steel and the marshmallows represent the building’s flexible and absorbent joints. We then placed our structures on top of whiteboards and gave them a good old shake!! Have a look at the video below to see one of the successful creations in action.

STEAM

In the STEAM room with Mr Atkinson, we have been learning all about space. We made the solar system on string and created a scaled model of their distance from the sun. Most recently, we have enjoyed making Mars Rovers. In real life, these rovers would land on Mars and capture data about life on the planet.

“We had some malfunctions at first but we worked through it once we figured out how to build the wheels.”

“We used someone’s genius idea to use the centre cardboard piece inside sellotape to create the wheels.”

“Our rover can rotate even just with one wheel.”

“We used a plastic bag for a parachute and if the wind catches it while it is moving, it will go up in the air.”

“It was quite hard to build the rovers because of all the tin foil that we were using for solar panels.”

“It was hard to find the right pieces to fit the roof of the rover and it was difficult to keep the wheels in place but we worked hard to.”

Glasgow Science Centre

Today we visited the Science Centre and were lucky enough to discover all 3 floors, as well as watch a movie in the IMAX theatre all about the journey to space.

“Testing my sprinting speed.”

“There were 8 pads on the floor, 4 each. We had a dance battle and had to bounce up and down to earn points. Whoever has the most by the end of the time won.”

“This was really sore on my legs because you had to jump about for so long!”

“We had to grab the metal part and spin it and it would make a windmill.”

“It was very interesting trying to find out what the objects were by just using touch.”

“We had to carefully place the blocks at a certain angle to make a freestanding archway.”

“It was an amazing day going to the Science Centre.” (Matthew & Finn).

“It was a lot of fun learning about all things science and how things work.” (Benjamin)

“It was a super fun day and hopefully we can go back again.” (Rose)

Rugby

“We warmed up by playing tig. If you were touched by the rugby ball, you had to put your hands in the air and someone has to give you a ‘high 10’ to set you free.” – Matthew

“We were put into teams of 3 and were given one minute to make as many successful passes as we could. You had to have your hands in the W shape to receive the ball.” – Rose

“In the games, we had to pass the rugby ball 5 times to get a point. For a challenge, we had to pass to each player in the team to earn a point at the end of the lesson.” – Calum

A Visit from Eastwood’s Science Ambassadors

This week, we were lucky to have some senior pupils from Eastwood deliver a lesson on ‘Space and the Solar System’ to our class.

We learned lots of new information and were able to get a feel for how small we really are in planet Earth in comparison to other planets around us.

We learned about mnemonics and got to make our own to help us remember the order of the planets. Take a look!

We then got to create our own planet, thinking about what we know about planets to help us describe it.

We also got to play some fun games and take part in activities.

Thank you to the Eastwood Ambassadors!

Maths Week Scotland

For this years MWS, we were celebrating maths through books! P6 were given ‘Fractions in Disguise’ to read. In this story, when a valuable fraction goes missing, George Cornelius Factor (a.k.a. GCF) vows to track it down. Knowing that the villainous Dr. Brok likes to disguise his ill-gotten fractions, GCF invents a Reducer—a tool that strips away the disguise, reducing the fraction and revealing its true form.

After reading the book, P6A had some fraction mysteries to sort too! We had to escape the fraction maze by simplifying fractions and spelling out a key word.

“We made it!”

We had lots of fun simplifying and finding equivalent fractions this week and look forward to learning more about it.

Writing

Over the last few weeks, we have been building an imaginative story, based around a theme park. We have had to consider the setting, as well as a main character before this week’s task of creating the main storyline and plot.

We started off our lesson by recapping a grammar technique we might need in our writing this week, the use of speech marks.

We then moved onto thinking about plots in popular books or movies.

“The main problem in the first Harry Potter movie is when Harry has to face Voldemort.”

“In Inside Out 2, new emotions are introduced and this is the rising action. Then the main plot is when the old emotions are all captured and imprisoned. The resolution comes when the magical wizard sets them all free.”

We then moved on to planning and writing our own plots for our imaginative story.

We even got to bring our theme parks to life with Kapla!

We took our first class photo this week!

French

We were recapping some French language this week! We had fun remembering how to ask peoples names and ages and got to play a game to help us with this.

Someone was picked to stand in front of the board and ask a friend “Comment t’appelles-tu?” which means “what is your name?” The person would respond by giving one of the characters on the board, like, “Je m’appelle Aladdin” and the person would then guess what their name should be, based on who their famous friend was. In this case, it would be “Je m’appelle Jasmine”.

Fitness

Last week, we started a new block of fitness. We identified the exercises which we felt we had particular strengths or room for development in. This week, we worked with a partner to improve some of our techniques/exercises.

“I was encouraging my partner to jump higher in his burpees.”

“I was reminding my partner to have their legs in a right angle while doing the wall sit.”

“When my partner was doing a sit-up, he had to put the cereal in the bowl. This was our technique to make sure he came up high enough.”

“I was checking to see if my partners knee was going to the floor in his lunges.”

“At the end of the lesson, we all worked on our sprints. We had to run to the red line, touch it, and then go and tag our partner for their turn.”

This is P6A’s first blog and we hope that you enjoy watching our journey this year.

This week, we have been taking part in lots of creative activities to get to know each other better.

We made a mini school bag and filled it with things from home to allow us to get to know more about each other. If we wanted to, we then got to stand up and share this with the whole class.

“I went skiing in France and got these medals from my instructor at the end of my trip.”

“This year I went to The Open, a very big golf competition, where I bought this hat and got famous golfers signatures.”

“I decided to make this poster because I really like singing and I performed in Crookfur’s got talent last year and even came 3rd!”

“This teddy is very special to me because I’ve had it since I was a little baby.”

We have been working on self-portraits this week and created our own ‘split portrait’. This means that one half of our faces are what we actually look like and the other half is made up of what we enjoy and what our passions are.”

“I made my eyebrow out of a paint pallet because I love art.” – Aria

“I made the eye out of a cheeseburger because it’s my favourite food.” – Benjamin

“I made a unicorn bobble on top of my head because that’s my favourite animal.” – Kayla

“I made a CD eye because I listen to a lot of music.” – Luke