Category Archives: STEM

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!

 

 

P1, STEM, Technology

P1c Visit to the National Museum of Scotland – 13 November

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Today in P1c  we were very excited as we travelled into Edinburgh by bus to visit the museum.  In the morning there was some free time to look around the animal section with some help from the P6 buddies who were also visiting the museum too. We particularly liked the animal skeletons!

After lunch we took part in a special workshop to learn about being museum engineers.  As you will see from the photographs we were very busy learning about cogs and gears and levers as we worked together to fix a clock.

Thank you very much to Mrs Spori and Mrs Ferrario for coming along to help us today and also to the P6 buddies for helping to keep us safe when we looked around the museum in the morning.

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?

 

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/

Classes, Community, Creativity, Mathematics, P1, P2, P2/1, P3, P3/2, P4, P5, P6, P7, Partnership Working, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

Cluster K’Nex Challenge

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A fantastic morning with Primary 6 pupils from all cluster schools coming together to take part in a Cluster K’Nex Challenge. The teams had to construct a wheelbarrow to carry a house brick through a challenging obstacle course.  The wheelbarrows were all tested in the gym hall and the ‘ladder of doom’ ended the fate of many of them. All of the teams did a brilliant job and a huge well done to Winchburgh Primary who constructed the wheelbarrow which was the most successful.

Our team of master constructors and their model, well done boys.

Creativity, P2/1, STEM, Technology

P2/1 Lots of new photos! – 30th March

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We have been even busier than usual over the last few weeks especially with our fundraising for Comic Relief and our visit to Almond Valley.  Thank you very much to our parent helpers for coming along too!  Below are just some of the photographs!

We have also been taking part in the Primary Engineer Challenge and last week we had a visit from Jemma Quin.  Jemma works as an engineer for a company called Morgan Sindall  and she told us all about her job and the things that she has designed and built.  We asked Jemma lots of questions!

Back in class we read some stories all about robots.  Our design challenge was to draw our own robots and write a little bit about what they could do.  We have sent our pictures to Jemma and hopefully we will soon receive our awards for being young engineers! Below are just some of them.

We have enjoyed taking part in lots of Spring and Easter activities this week – thank you to the parents who helped us with these!

 

 

 

Art, Creativity, Dance, Digital Technology, Drama, Literacy, Music, P7, Scottish Culture, Social Studies, STEM, Technology, Thinking Skills

P7A Creativity Challenge

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P7A have been looking after a mysterious box for the last few days.  Today was the day to open it…

Inside was a crest wrapped in a blanket – we brainstormed some ideas of what the crest might mean, where it was from, what is was and what the symbols meant.  After a bit of research we came up with some ideas…

Then we worked to think of creative things we could do – we had loads of different ideas.

Right now, we’re working on some of the suggestions we cameup with.  We’ll post up some of the final creative activities!

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!