Category: STEM
Primary Engineering – If You Were an Engineer What Would You Do?
Way back in March Calderwood was abuzz with Engineering…
IDL Topics, Calderwood Connects, Dragon’s Dens and Clan Presentations all led to our children taking part in a National Engineering Competition. The children were posed the question: If You Were an Engineer What Would You Do? My goodness we could’ve powered the inventions they dreamed up with the creativity, thinking and work which went into all the competition entries!
We want to give a special mention to the following people, who were recognised by the competition judges:
Ella – Highly Commended – Top Shelf Grabber
Mason – Highly Commended – See in the Dark Goggles
Lochie – Winner – Flying Shoes
Lucy – Highly Commended – Things to help us
Kiera – Highly Commended – The On Time Roller Skates
Charlotte – Winner – Solar Plane
Mhairi – Highly Commended – The Secret School for Girls
Rachel – Winner – Flying Car
Anveeta – Highly Commended – The Plastic Rocket
Ananya – Highly Commended – The Invisible Cloak
The Champions, children and families attended the Awards Ceremony on Thursday 2nd June, in the Engineering building at the University of Edinburgh, to celebrate Highly Commended and Winning entries to the competition.
We can’t wait to celebrate with everyone at our next Calderwood Connects but for the meantime – keeping STEMing and always look for that engineering opportunity!
Championing Coding: National Robotarium
The Bens had a phenomenal opportunity to take a trip to the newly-opened National Robotarium. Ben Lomond and Ben Lawers had the most amazing day being ambassadors for our school, showing off their robotics and coding knowledge, and exploring new AI technologies.
Please see the Sway created by Ben Lomond all about their trip:
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Oceans IDL
At Calderwood, our pupils get autonomy over what they want to learn. We try to ensure we listen and follow along with what they find interesting.
Through  This Mural (click to see what we said at our last pupil planning meeting)
We decided we would learn about Oceans. Through our planning meeting, we looked at different sub-topics and thought about what we already knew and what we wanted to find out more about:
This week, we looked at where the worlds ocean were and used Google Earth to locate, name and label different Ocean Areas and seas. Mural allows us to work collaboratively on the same document. We used technology, map skills and research skills to complete our geography challenge.
We also found out that the river closest to Calderwood is the River Almond and it runs into the North Atlantic Ocean.
We think we did a great job at our first attempt – what do you think? Spot any mistakes?
We are looking forward to exploring more about ore world’s ocean as we move forward through the term.
The Ben’s IDL Showcase
Last week, the Ben’s took over the Discovery Den area.
They has been working on their IDL topic ‘Ancient Civilisations’ and had so much amazing work, they wanted to show it off and plan a school event. Here is what they had to say:
In 4 main groups, we chose our Civilisation of interest: Ancient Romans, Ancient Egyptians, the Aztecs and the Vikings.
We organised ourselves into sub-topics and worked for 5 weeks researching, learning, discussing, planning and creating beautiful, amazing pieces of work that demonstrated what we learned from our research.
We set wrote poems and stories, collected data, made PPT’s, cooked food, conducted science experiments, created art pieces, performed drama pieces and made videos.
We used our teamwork skills to work together to build a picture of what we discovered.
They invited members of staff and other clans around and presented beautifully and confidently, the learning and knowledge they had on their chosen topic. Well done Bens!
Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) in Primary 4 and 5 Consultation
Bring Your Own Device
SUMDOG – Calderwood Counts
Maths Week Scotland is just around the corner which means – Sumdog Competition time!
The contest will begin at 8 am on Friday 23rd September and end on Thursday 29th September. Your child can access the competition by clicking here or logging in via the following link and using their unique username, password, and school code Calderwood2:
https://www.sumdog.com/user/sign_in
This competition is a fantastic way to compete against lots of other Primary students, have fun and develop numeracy/maths skills at the very same time. Your child has received a card which includes their unique username and password to keep safe at home. If you have any issues with accessing Sumdog or using the details on the card please do get in touch with the school office as we’d be more than happy to assist.
Your child may be set some questions which they whizz through at the start. Completing these will support them to answer appropriate questions during the Competition so please do hang in there and complete them!
STEM in The Bens
STEM is a huge part of who we are at Calderwood.
Recently, the Bens have been exploring the area of chemistry and chemical reactions.
We started by giving the pupils the chance to experience first hand a basic chemical reaction – water, oil and an effervescent tablet! – They were given the instructions but no adult support to carry it out.
This encouraged independent and collaborative learning & problem solving skills.
Next, we watched and observed the magic that took place! The comments, questions and curiosity from them was fantastic.
-“why is mine fizzing so much?”
-“why does the oil sit on top of the water?”
-What makes it do that?”
With our curiosity activated, we learned all about the chemical reaction & creation of carbon dioxide.
The following week, we conducted a fair test and began to explore how scientists set up testing by ensuring variables & conditions were all the same, only making one change at a time.
Children worked amazingly together to investigate their own scientific enquiry questions such as:
“what happens to the amount of fizz if I change the amount of tablets?”
“what happens to the oil bubbles if I use milk instead of water?”- (warning, it smelled awful!)
“what happens to the amount of fizzing time if I use less water?”
Well done, Bens – it was fantastic to watch you experience the wonders of STEM on your own.
Why Not Me Event
