STEM – Page 4 – Calderwood Primary and Nursery

Play in Primary 1 our Rationale

Please see below our rationale for Play-Based learning and teaching in Primary 1.

Term 4 in the Bens

Last term, to begin our celebration of British Science Week 2022, the Ben Clans created a STEM takeover for each Clan in our school! The groups created a variety of lessons to deliver to the younger clans. Tay Clan learned about the skeleton, Rannoch Clan learned all about space and our solar system, Ness created scrap robots and used a sphero to move the robot, Bluebell Clan looked at the layers of the Earth and Bramble focussed on food chains in our oceans. Mull, Shetland and Orkney developed an understanding of space, star constellations and the universe.

The experience generated a lot of discussion around earth, space and the universe, informing the direction of learning for this term.

Our cross curricular topic this term is science based and will be looking at the origins of life and the habitability of earth and other planets. We began this week by watching a short clip narrated by David Attenborough about the tree of life and then researched the evolution of a penguin, inputting our research onto Padlet. Please click here to see our research.

Alongside this, we will also began understanding the different viewpoints offered in the creation stories from different world religions. We started this week with the Christian creation story and began to understand that there are similarities with that and the creation story in Judaism. We created our own versions of the Judeo-Christian creation story using powerpoint, imovies including greenscreen and SWAY.

Literacy

We are beginning to learn about the features and structure of narrative writing. We have been exploring our reading books to develop our understanding of the orientation, complication and resolution found within this genre of text. This week, we had a go at writing a narrative based around a theme of racing. We looked at a good example and deconstructed it so we could understand how to write one ourselves. One of the Bens wrote a story called ‘The Horse Race’. It is a good example as it has a clear orientation stating who, when and where; the complication is clear and includes direct speech and accurate punctuation and the resolution explains what happens and solves the problem, bringing the story to a conclusion.

We are excited about the term ahead and look forward to sharing with you soon. Watch this space!!

The Bens 🙂

We have a winner!

We are extremely proud to announce that an invention created by a child from Ness Clan won the East of Scotland for their age category. Their invention, The Automatic Pencil, will be displayed at the University of Edinburgh Exhibition on 18th May and they will also recieve their certificate and trophy at an Award Ceremony later that day.

We had a huge number of entries of an extremely high standard so all children involved in the If you were an engineer what would you do? competition should be extremely proud of themselves. A special thanks also goes to Mr Clarke (Calderwood Parent) for giving the children in Ness, Rannoch and Tay Clans inspiration to begin inventing through presenting to the clans on the topic of his STEM career.

If you would like to find out more about this award please click here.

Calderwood Can: 11/03/22

Our Ben Lawers and Lomond Clans started British Science Week by organising and teaching a Science Friday Takeover with all our clans.

They nominated children from each clan for a certificate for their contribution and participation in the science tasks!

Congratulations everyone and thank you to our Ben Clans for organising such a successful event.

Thank you to The Grapes!

A huge thank you to The Grapes in East Calder, for purchasing these chef aprons for Primary 4, for their Le Clan Café event. These aprons will also be used in our STEM Studio for cookery experiences. Thank you!

West Lothian Sumdog Maths Contest: 11.3.22 – 17.3.22

Huge good luck to all our amazing Calderwood Primary School Children, they have now been entered into the West Lothian Sumdog Maths Contest! The contest will run between Friday 11th March and Thursday 17th March. Your child can access the competition by logging in via the following link and using their unique username and password along with the 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. If your child has forgotten their details, please do get in touch with the school office as we’d be more than happy to assist.

Internet Safety Week

L.I I am learning how to develop healthy and respectful relationships online.

As it was internet safety week, Rannoch clan learned about how to develop healthy and respectful relationships online. We discussed in groups, what kindness looks like, feels like and sounds like online, why it matters and what we can do if someone is being hurtful online.

We made a looks like, feels like and sounds like grid to put up in our clan room which included all our ideas. We can refer back to this when needed. We then looked at unkind comments and tried to find a way to change these so that they are acceptable to share online. Finally, we played a game on google called ‘interland’ and explored the kind kingdom level. This game aims to help children to stay safe and be kind online. We picked up some helpful hints on how to be kind online.

Advice for P4-7 on How to Access Microsoft Glow Apps

We would request that if children have access to a phone or tablet they download the following free apps to support with learning through glow:

Microsoft Teams – This is their online classroom.
Microsoft One Drive – This enables the children to save work to upload to their team. It also allows them to access their documents at home and school.
Microsoft Word
Microsoft One Note
Microsoft Powerpoint

Downloading Microsoft Apps and Logging in for the First Time

The instructions on the link below will show you how to log into the apps.

To download Microsoft Office 2016 from the Glow Application Library, search for the ‘Office 365’ tile, shown here. It can be found on the National (Scotland) Launch Pad or you can add it to your own Launch Pad. Further help on the App Library is available here.

To download the software to a PC or Mac, click on the Office 365 tile and follow the instructions. More information from Microsoft is available here.

If you are downloading to an iPad or iPhone, you will need to download the apps from the App Store then log in using your Glow username. More information from Microsoft is available here.

It is also possible to download the apps from within Microsoft O365. To do so, click on the Office 365 link in the top left of your screen. This will take you to the O365 home page. Click on ‘Install Office 2016’ and follow the instructions.

Entering your username

When logging in, you will be asked to enter your username – this is your Glow username plus the domain e.g. gw15examplejames@glow.sch.uk. You will then be transferred to the Glow login screen.

Once you have entered your login details here, your registration will be complete. The Glow username will only activate the software for as long as that account is active in Glow.

Saving their work using an app

When using an app such as word or powerpoint, children should save their work to one drive.

When uploading their work to a team: