Our topic this term has been Natural Disasters. An activity we recently took part in was building our own lessons. We worked in groups of about 4 people. We firstly researched our assigned natural disaster, we had to learn more about it. This was independent learning. We used the Chromebooks and looked for information around how to protect yourself from this disaster, how they were formed, how to prevent them, fun facts and some examples. We then put this information into a PowerPoint and a poster. Some people worked on the poster one week and some people worked on the PowerPoint, then we swapped roles the following week. This enabled everyone an opportunity to do both roles.
We emailed our PowerPoints to Miss Hillhouse who checked over them to make sure our information was correct. Learning how to send emails is an important skill. We planned to present the PowerPoint and poster to our peers, so we also constructed a worksheet to check if they were listening and assess their learning. Our worksheet needed to have a learning intention, task, picture and factual information that linked to what we have presented, as well as a space for pupils to write their names. When we were presenting we had to have eye contact, our body facing the audience and be able to clearly explain our information. We needed to speak clearly and loudly to capture our audience’s attention and keep them interested.
We enjoyed making the posters, working with our peers and finding out new information. The information was easier to understand because it was being taught by people the same age as us. We got the chance to be the teacher! We got to hear what other people thought of what we had done, getting feedback was really helpful. We got to be flexible, decide what ideas we wanted to put into our poster and PowerPoint and take ownership of our learning. We got to correct the worksheets with our teacher, we had to remember the answers to our questions so we could quickly peer assess our friends work, which helped us learn. It was also fun to see how our peers got on and if our lesson helped them learn.
FUN FACTS: The word ‘monsoon’ comes from the Arabic word ‘mosom’, which means weather. We also learned that sometimes during a monsoon there can be a sandstorm. The moon acts as a shield against meteors. Sometimes meteors can cause earthquakes. Some of the deadliest avalanches happen in Russia, Canada and Peru. One of the ways to stop landslides and mudslides is to plant trees to block their way.
