Category Archives: STEM

Kites STEM Challenge

The children worked in pairs to create a kite using a variety of materials. Lots of skills were being developed through this activity – for example collaboration, co-operation, problem solving, listening etc.

The wind was blowing so it was great to go and test the kites. The children soon found out that in order to fly the kites well they had to work together.

Measuring Rainfall

The children worked in mixed groups to make rain gauges to measure rainfall.

They then had to find a suitable position outdoors to place their rain gauge and dig a hole to place it in to keep it stable.

There was a lot of excitement around the pond as they all spotted our very large resident frog!

We will go out at regular intervals to check on the rainfall and record the results in class.

Valentines Day

There was a lot of love in p1/2 this week. The children did a great job of making Valentines cards for loved ones at home.

The primary 1’s love their buddying time in school and made these little guys together during their session this week.

They have also had the freedom to be creative in the craft and modelling area and have made some of their own creations for loved ones there.

Water Experiments

The children have loved setting up and learning about the properties of water experiments.

  • They had great fun doing evaporation experiments and talking about the results.
  • They froze little creatures and dinosaurs into ice blocks and spent time chipping away and getting the ice to melt to get them out again. Learning that water can be a solid, a liquid and gas called water vapour from the earlier experiments.

They have enjoyed investigating ice and creating habitats with the polar animals.

 

It’s beginning to feel festive

Lots of opportunities for maths and literacy throughout the classroom linked to Christmas.

Busy Elves in the Christmas Corner

The Class Advent Calendar

 

Christmas Jumper Day

Divali

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!

Alien Adjectives

The children have had great fun creating these aliens after reading a story in class with Miss Jamieson. There was a lot of discussion and many amazing descriptive words about their characters. The Primary two’s practised their ICT skill by typing and printing out fancy lettering for words to add to the display.

Children In Need

Well done Primary 123 who raised an amazing £331.29 for Children in Need today.

They organised a coin collection in the school and got everything ready for other classes to come and sort their coins into the different tubs.

The children did really well and had to ensure the correct coins went into the correct buckets.

They had spent time the day before in pairs and small groups preparing the buckets and learning about the different coins as well as where the money collected is going to.

The buckets looked fabulous!

The p123 Eco Committee

Today the winners of the Eco- Committee competition were announced in assembly.

The children had a choice of whether to re-cycle their bags into something new or to design a new Bag for Life to re-use.

There were so many amazing designs and such creativity from all the classes. It was difficult for the p123 Eco-Committee to judge but well done to Evie, Freyja, Ella, Merryn, Eve and Aylee.

The p123 did a presentation in assembly two weeks ago about how we can re-use, re-cycle and reduce waste to help the environment and announced the competition then. They showed off all their examples of how they have re-used and re-cycled their bags.

Fireworks!

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 Fun

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!

 

 

Making Boats Float

After looking at different types of boats and discussing what it is that makes them float the children had the task of making their own ones. They focused on making a hollow shape that could balance in the water.

They worked in pairs to make their designs.

Then each boat was tested to see how well it could float as the load got heavier.

They practised counting the marbles that each boat could hold.

These are the results next to the names of their boats…….

The Three Little Pigs

The children loved hearing the story of the three Little Pigs.

The children worked in groups to create houses made of straw, sticks and blocks. They had to decide how to join the different materials and make it as strong as they could.

It was great to listen to the children sharing ideas, chatting about the story as they made the different parts of the houses. The three versions look great.

The primary 2 and 3 children used the story for writing practise and have written books of their own. below are examples of writing from three different primary 2’s.

The Primary 3’s have been focusing on extending their vocabulary and including different connectives to lengthen their sentences.

The primary 1’s and 2’s loved using the story for Drawing Club. It is amazing to see the progress in the P1 fine motor control.

The have also been using stick puppets and masks to role play the story and make up their own adventures too.

 

 

Rapunzel’s Towers

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.

 

Making Glasses

The children had so much fun making glasses today. They enjoyed hearing about the Dinosaur who Lost his Specs and decided what their glasses would enable them to see. Some glasses made everything invisible, or a particular colour, and some even made everything fly or even gave the children super powers!

Loose Parts in the Sun

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.

Make it fly

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.

Shoes!

Today the children enjoyed listening to the story of ‘The Elves and The Shoe Maker’. Last week in library time we read ‘Don’t Chew the Royal Shoe’, which was really funny.

So after some discussion about different kinds of footwear the children had a go at  making their own using various materials.

The children worked in pairs and had to help each other complete the task of having a pair of shoes each. They did really well and we spoke about co-operation and helping each other.

They were so chuffed to wear them when they were finished and we now have a bit of a shoe shop developing in the classroom.

Spinning Stem

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.