Mrs Arbuckle was cleaning out the “duck pond” and put in new, clean water. Some children came along and tried to float their Lego planes. “Can we make boats to sail ? “ they asked. Why not? STEM learning at it it’s best! We decided that we would need card, paper, straws, sellotape and scissors….and a lot of patience!
The children were encouraged to design their own boats. No instructions were given. We then looked at each of the designs and some people decided their design had to be modified or “ a big wave would sink it!” So we tried again. Next we added the sails and decorated our boats. Then it was time to test our boats. Success all round!
When we review our day, Mrs Arbuckle is often told “we haven’t done any work today!” This makes her smile. Play makes us learn so much, but we don’t realise it’s work! Balancing nuts and bolts? That will be maths. Building a den? That will be STEM. Looking at our plants with magnifying glasses? That will be science. Touching the meteors and the moon rocks? That will be STEM. Reading stories? That will be literacy…… and so it goes….😁👍
We are aways learning through play in 1.3. They conversations and discussions are amazing to hear. The children discover and learn so much through trying new activities or just being creative.
Mrs MacGregor showed us how to use the VR headsets. They were so cool. We looked at the Earth from the Moon; We saw the Sun; we looked at New York and Dubai; we saw giraffes and lions ; we saw reindeer in the arctic and a rocket launch. We could look at everything in in the most amazing detail.
We could look to the left, right, up and down and when we tilted our heads, we saw all around. It was amazing!
We learned about building structures today. We discovered the role of an architect and made floor plans for our structure. Some children mentioned that is what is happening in their house for their extensions.
We then moved on to build our structures. We had a variety of materials to use and had to decide which was best. There was a lot of discussion. We decided bricks were best, as they were strong and wouldn’t blow down.
We learned about computer science today with “Hour of Code”. We had to create a program to enable BB-8 to complete tasks. We move the blocks to give him the “code” to move. Some of us got to level 6!
Our STEM Fortnight was launched on Friday at a whole school assembly, led by Mrs MacGregor, who has coordinated our events. Our guest speaker was Heather Reid MBE, (aka “Heather the Weather”) who was a BBC weather reporter and is a very clever meteorologist.
We have lots of STEM activities planned and lots of visitors coming in to our school. We also have a STEM Showcase evening on 21st March at 6pm – 7.30pm for pupils and parents, with lots of things to see and do.
Our activities will be on the blog. We are looking forward to it.
Just another blogs.glowscotland.org.uk – East Renfrewshire site
