Lots of opportunities for maths and literacy throughout the classroom linked to Christmas.
The children have been learning about Divali this term. They made lovely little diva lamps and used coloured rice to create this Rangoli pattern on the wall.
They used loose parts, peas and beans, Numicon and counters to create Rangoli patterns which tied in nicely with our work on pattern and symmetry.
The Primary 1’s created this collage of Ravani, the 10 headed demon god from the story of Rama and Sita. He looks pretty scary!
The children listened to the story of Guy Fawkes and also had a chat about being safe on bonfire night.
The children used junk modelling techniques to create their own firework to go above the London skyline.
The primary one’s used 2D shapes to make the rockets with their names on them.
They loved using the beads to make firework patterns. They also made a really good firework noise on the plastic tray!
Halloween is always so much fun and lends itself so well to the classroom with exciting fun learning opportunities. Below the children created a potion with many disgusting ingredients, using magic words and actually getting it to bubble up and overflow the cauldron. The potion made lots of weird and interesting things happen. Children are so creative and imaginative.
They wrote out their chosen ingredients and shared spells with each other.
The primary ones had to use their phonic sounds and choose the correct ingredients to read magic words.
The classroom has a Haunted House area with lots of Halloween creatures and costumes to use.
There have been a few disgusting days in the water tray with slime and goo, full of spiders and snakes. And other opportunities to measure weigh and create bottles of potions with different materials.
The children can’t wait to scare their parents with these ‘teethy’ symmetrical pumpkins!
and the spooky bat prints!
The children are very good at using lots of practical materials to help understand place value and number concepts.
The p2’s have been working with numbers up to 100 and the p3’s learning about bigger numbers up to 1000.
There are lots of practical lessons, using materials, playing games, using technology, discussions on ‘how’ they are working out their answers and demonstrating their learning to each other.
The children are encouraged to use materials to continue to consolidate understanding. They are also very good at finding what they need themselves to work out their answers correctly.
The p2’s have been practising ways of organising items to ensure they count out the correct number. They are making a number from a card and grouping items into 10’s to count them easier. They then swap around and check each others numbers.
We have a go at Drawing club usually about twice a week.
Below are 3 examples of stories we have used this term to inspire wonderful drawings by p1,2 and 3.
It is not just about the drawing though, there are so many skills being developed through not only the delivery of the story but new vocabulary, maths concepts, phonological awareness, spelling and rhyming patterns etc. It is also a great way to focus in on the children who may need a little bit of extra help building their confidence with pencil grip, fine motor skills and forming shapes, numbers, letters etc on paper.
The children draw with me in little groups to be able to hear repeated vocabulary and have a go at creating their own masterpieces. They love it and get very excitied about Drawing Club.
The Primary 1 children have been so busy this term practising number formations, playing number games and learning through so many fun, active and practical ways.
With each new number we focused on they enjoyed a story and also a practical activity, game or craft activity to go along with it.
I have only managed to get photos of some of the ways the children have been learning about the numbers as it is a very busy environment with so many exciting things going on.
There are always maths activities in the classroom and shared area. Below are some examples of children measuring weight and volume in the tuff trays and water tray and there are also opportunities to learn about time and money in the classroom.
The children had to build towers as tall as they could manage using a variety of different construction materials. Some children chose to work in pairs or in a small group and some wanted to build their own ones.
Willum’s tower was the tallest and he only used three blocks! Good thinking Willum. The children quickly learned that they needed to make the base of the tower larger and get smaller as it got higher for it to be more stable. Lots of great discussion and problem solving going on.
We are very lucky at Whiteness Primary to have such excellent outdoor spaces that provide rich environments for learning. Today we focused on using the loose parts in the shed to build, experiment and play. It is amazing seeing how the children use the various resources to create, solve problems and develop more flexible thinking.
Firstly the children thought about what they needed and took the materials they needed to an area they wanted to play/develop.
There was lots of discussion, collaboration and physical work to gather materials.
The children worked together to solve problems, develop ideas and negotiate. The spaces they created were fantastic and they had so much fun.
We also had snack in the new polycrub, which was lovely but quite hot.
Lots of the children were involved in using a series of pipes and guttering to get water to flow down a slope. There were so many peerie engineers helping and coming up with ideas and solutions to problems. They were so excited when each new section worked and they just wanted to make it even longer.
The children had a STEM activity this afternoon after discussing how birds fly.
First they had some simple instructions to follow . It was lovely to see the children helping each other with the tricky bits.
once they had made them they went outside to try them out.
The children listened to the story of Rumplestiltskin and then they all had a go at Drawing Club in little groups.
The children learned a little bit about forces and we focused on the spinning motion of objects which they have loved investigating.
They then made their own penny spinners and designed them so they would look really cool when they were spun around.
The children have been measuring length using different body parts, uniform objects and moving on to metres and half metres. They have really enjoyed these practical fun activities and challenges. I just haven’t managed to get many photos.
Following on from length and capacity the children have been learning about weighing objects.
The children worked really well in pairs to weigh small items using uniform objects like cubes and pegs.
They were very good at estimating and recording their answers.
They went on to use kgs and half kgs and enjoyed estimating each others weights and the adults too.
The Primary 2’s have also been learning about Area and how to cover a surface with different uniform objects and then moving onto squares.
The children had a great morning at the beach and they loved searching in the seaweed and amongst the rocks for crabs and shells.
Carina made this wonderful pattern with lots of similar sized whelks which she had collected on the beach.
We stayed at the beach for snack which is always a treat.
We do live in the most beautiful place with fantastic opportunities for learning outdoors.
The children have been learning about capacity in maths. For part of this topic they have been learning outdoors so we have been glad of the dry weather.
The Primary 1’s had a variety of containers to choose from and then had to decide on a suitable ‘measuring’ container. They got the hang of making good estimations before working together to find out the correct answer.
The primary 2’s have been learning about litres and half litres. Their containers were quite big so we were glad to be able to work outside with all that water.
They worked really well with a partner and their estimations were getting pretty close to the actual measurements once they checked.
The children had to cut their toast either in half or into quarters and choose their toppings for each part.
The children have been learning a liitle bit about the symbols of Easter and they enjoyed listening to the story from the Bible.
They had great fun today doing an Easter Egg Hunt in the school grounds which resulted in some yummy chocolate treats at snack time.
This tied in with the patterns which the children have been doing in maths as they created repeating patterns using colours and shapes to design beautiful Easter Eggs.
Have a great holiday everyone!
Opportunities for using loose part to create dens. Great for developing problem solving and teamwork skills.
Collecting the melting snow from icicles dripping from the roof. Great science and STEM opportunities outdoors.
Some of the melting ice was collected in a different way!
Deciding which containers are best for different purposes. Evie’s snowman needed three different sized containers.
Opportunities to develop creativity, confidence and take risks- so many skills being developed.
Collaboration, choice and commitment in play develops so many social skills and friendships. It can also be exhausting!
Testing to see which snowball goes fastest- big or small? Does lifting the guttering higher or lower? So many opportunities for conversation, developing vocabulary and communication skills outdoors.
Checking out footprints and the different patterns boots make in the snow.
The children have been doing a lot of data handling recently in maths. These lessons are always really active and busy so its difficult to capture on camera how much learning has taken place.
The primary 1’s have been learning about different ways to sort items and explaining the criteria they used to put items in different groups.
The primary 2’s have been doing a lot of surveys in the class and in the other classrooms too. They have been using this data to create graphs and diagrams.
The primary 1’s have also been creating graphs using practical materials.
by sorting the information they have they are getting good at answering the types of questions necessary to explain their data.
The children all looked amazing today and had great fun listening to and reading stories.
Several of the staff joined in as characters from the book The Day the Crayons Quit.
The children loved sharing their books and explaining who their characters were.
Ellis dressed as Greg from Diary of A Wimpy Kid and Mrs Moncrieff was the white crayon to colour him in.
In the afternoon the children became authors and publishers and wrote their own books! They were so enthusiastic and the independent writing was amazing.
The children started by selecting suitable boxes/junk to make their model dinosaur. They worked in pairs so there was a lot of discussion and collaboration to find the parts and join them together.
We spoke about how to make their model strong by creating different types of joins in using PVA and sellotape.
The next stage was seriously messy. They used papier mache to cover the dinosaur, focusing on the joins and making sure the newspaper strips went from one part of the model onto an adjoining part.
Once the models had two coats of papier mache it was time to choose colours for their dinosaur.
Once the paint was dry the children thought about the detail they wanted to add- eyes, teeth, claws etc.
The primary 2’s have been working on adjectives in their literacy work so this was a great opportunity to apply that learning to describing their dinosaur.
The writing was read out in class for the others to guess which model the description matched.
Their is now a little Dinosaur Exhibition set up in the school for the other classes and staff to visit to see the models and the writing.
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