Category Archives: Problem Solving

Food Technology, Literacy, P1, Problem Solving, Thinking Skills, Uncategorized

P1c Learning Update 29 April

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Miss McDermott and Mrs Smith were delighted to see us all back safely for our last term together as P1c. We also welcomed 2 new children to our class and we hope that they enjoy learning and taking part in all the super activities at Linlithgow Primary School with us.

This term one of our topics is Fairy Tales and Traditional Stories and we have started this by reading a  rhyming and lift the flap story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Unfortunately as you know, Goldilocks is rather naughty in the story so we made and displayed some WANTED posters.

Our first team challenge this term was based on the book “A Chair for Baby Bear”.

We worked in teams of 3 to design and build new chairs for our own baby bear using different construction materials. We had to make sure that he would fit comfortably on the chair and that the chair would not fall over.  As you will see from the photographs most of the groups came up with fantastic designs to complete the challenge.

Our second team challenge was to retell the  Goldilocks story using puppets and trying to use “character voices”.  First of all we made the stick puppets and then decided who would be each character.  This was quite tricky as there were 4 characters and only 3 of us in each group. Miss McDermott was very pleased as she did not need to help any of the groups to sort this out!  We then had some practice time before we performed our puppet shows to each other.  There was much laughter at our different “bear” voices!

We have also enjoyed reading the story “Who’s Been Eating My Porridge?” by Nick Ward which includes a very strange porridge monster and a porridge party.

So we decided to end the week by having our very own porridge tasting party, helped of course by Mrs Smith!  We all tried some plain porridge and some sweet porridge to see which one we liked best.  Some of us however, didn’t like any of them (as you might be able to tell from our faces!!) but we did try them which was the important thing.

 

 

 

Creativity, P1, Parents, Partnership Working, Problem Solving, Science, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

P1c Primary Engineers – 17th March

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As part of British Science Week we have been revisiting our learning about engineers. We love to build things but this week we have also been learning about designing things too.

Along with lots of other classes in school we are taking part in the Primary Engineers competition which is quite tricky for P1! We have been reading lots of robot stories to help us get some ideas for designing and making our own robots and also thinking about jobs that robots could do to help people.

We worked with a partner to make our robots and could choose whether to use construction materials or junk. Everyone’s model had to include a “button” to turn it on and off!

We drew pictures of our robots and labelled them for the competition. We also had to write a sentence explaining what our robot could do. Here are just a few of them.

Sophia’s mum came into class to tell us all about her job as a civil engineer.  We enjoyed looking at the fantastic photos of the Queensferry Crossing as it was being built and also seeing some real engineers’ plans.  We asked lots of questions.

Thank you very much to Sophia’s mum for leaving her special Health and Safety clothing for us to try on too!

 

 

Creativity, P1, Problem Solving, Thinking Skills

P1c Bird Activity Afternoon – 31 January

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This afternoon we read the story Charlie Crow in the Snow by Paula Metcalf. We learned that some birds like swallows fly away to warmer countries in the winter and some birds like Charlie stay at home in Scotland.

As you will see from the photographs we then took part in three different bird themed activities.  One of these was a challenge to work with a partner to build a bird house that could stand up without support . After many attempts, some of the results were very impressive indeed!

We also made model birds using plasticine and craft materials.  Some of the girls helped Miss McDermott to prepare the resources and practised counting in 2s at the same time.

Mrs Smith helped us to make bird feeders for our gardens so that birds like Charlie won’t go hungry in the winter.  Some of us were not overly keen on this activity as you can see by our faces and we certainly didn’t want to eat them!!

PS

Apologies for some of the rather blurry pictures today – it seems the camera lens had some bird food mixture on it!

 

P4, Problem Solving, Science, Scottish Culture, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

P4 Electrical Engineers

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This week in P4 we have been learning about Electricity and creating our own circuits.

We found out about James Bowman Lindsay (1799-1862). A Scottish Scientist who was said to be one of the earlier inventors of the incandescent lamp.

Here we are creating our own circuits to light our lamps and trying to match electrical symbols to their names. Did you know that electrical symbols are universal symbols, recognised Worldwide?

 

Achievements, Art, Classes, Community, Creativity, Curriculum, Digital Technology, Drama, Global Citizenship, Literacy, Numeracy, P7, Problem Solving, Scottish Culture, Social Studies, Thinking Skills

P7A Defenders in Action

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Well done to all the P7 pupils who took part in their mock trials this evening. They were confident, well-prepared, well-behaved and enthusiastic. We were impressed by their persuasive arguments and their cool, calm and collected approach under pressure. Here are a few snaps of P7A in their case against St Mary’s (Leith). JP

P1, Problem Solving, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills, Uncategorized

P1a team challenge – make a chair for baby bear

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Like our Maths activities , this week’s team challenge also had a teddy bear theme.  We read  the story  A Chair for Baby Bear and then  we had  to design and make our own chairs.  We talked about trying to make the chairs the right size and “stable” so that baby bear didn’t fall over. We also talked about how teamwork meant everyone had to take part.

At the end of the challenge all the teams tested their chair with our class baby bear.  None of the chairs fell over –  and as you can see some were big and some were small! One team even made their very own baby bear from the construction materials. Well done everyone  – super teamwork!

Creativity, P1, Problem Solving, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

P1a’s first team challenge – bridge building!

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In honour of the Queen coming to Scotland to officially open the new Queensferry Crossing today, P1a undertook their first team challenge – to work in small groups to build their own bridges.

The children were not allowed to choose their groups or the materials that they were given.  They had to work together to build one bridge per team and as you can see the results were super – well done everyone!

Creativity, Literacy, P2, P2/1, P7, Problem Solving, STEM

Primary Engineer Young Leader!

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Last month P7 and P2 and P2/1 were learning all about engineers and engineering skills. We found out about what engineers do and the process they use to solve problems and design solutions.  As part of this, the pupils identified a problem in today’s world that they wanted to solve and designed a machine to solve it.  These designs were entered into the Primary Engineers Young Leader Award.

After sorting through over 20,000 entries, the experts at Primary Engineers selected Aimee from P7A as a prize winner for her design for a rubbish bin!  She is now on the shortlist for the overall winner from each age group.

The shortlisted entries go on show at Barony Hall, Glasgow on Saturday 3rd and Sunday 4th June 2017.  Good Luck Aimee!

https://universeofengineering.com/primary-engineer-leaders-award/

Creativity, Digital Technology, Homework, Mathematics, P7, Partnership Working, Problem Solving, Science, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

Primary Engineers!

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P7 are in the middle of working towards the Primary Engineer’s Young Leader award.  The classes have been researching engineering and finding out about all the different areas of engineering that are around.

They’ve also been finding out about inspiring engineers (especially famous Scottish engineers like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Telford, John Logie Baird and James Watt) and this week they have been lucky enough to have a visit from two engineers, Angus and Will, from the Royal Observatory in Edinburgh to talk about their work.

The classes had a chance to take part in activities that gave them experience of some of the skills the engineers use in their work, including robotics, optics, programming and working with lasers.

Creativity, P2/1, Problem Solving, Science, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills, Uncategorized

P2/1 Cows Jumping Over the Moon amongst other things!

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This morning we were very fortunate to have Mrs Lowe, one of our parent helpers, in class.  She helped us plant nasturtium seeds whilst Miss McDermott worked with the maths groups.  We learned that nasturtiums are unusual because you can eat their flowers! We know from Mr Hogg that we will need to water our seeds carefully and we are going to have a rota for doing this.

After break we wrote instructions for planting seeds and discussed how instructions are another kind of non fiction text.

In the afternoon, we learned about another Scottish inventor.  Here are a few of the pictures that we have drawn so far.

Then we worked with a partner for today’s challenge – to try and make a cow jump over the moon!  We had lots of fun trying to make catapults and pinging toy farm animals all over the classroom!  Like many of the challenges we do it was not easy but we are getting much better are not giving up and helping each other to do our best.

 

 

 

Literacy, P2/1, Problem Solving, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

A very busy Monday in P2/1!

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This week we are focusing on non fiction texts in literacy and the children are choosing their own reading books to share at home.

In the morning we learned about different types of non fiction texts and we have a lovely selection of magazines in class which all the groups will have time to read over the week.  Some of the children have suggested we link this to our data handling learning and do a survey of our favourite magazines at the end of the week.  Watch this space!

A few of the children searched the newspapers to look for things that might interest children.  As you can see from these photos, they did not like getting their hands covered in newsprint!

To celebrate British Science Week, we are learning about a different Scottish inventor each day.   As you will know if you read our blog regularly,  we love designing and making things in P2/1 and this week we will be doing some team challenges that have both a design and a farm animal theme.

We have read the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff and acted it out using puppets and masks.  Today the challenge was to design and make a raft or boat to carry the three Billy Goats Gruff safely across our water tray.   This was not as  easy as it might look as some of the containers that Miss McDermott gave us had holes in them!