Category Archives: Technology

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.

Digital Technology, Food Technology, Health and Wellbeing, P1, P6, Social Studies, Technology

Internet Safety Day and Mango Tasting in P1a!

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This week we have been talking about what we think the internet is! (Please note – all of the children took part in the discussion but they did not all want to be filmed!)

https://vimeo.com/254561251

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We played some games with our buddies about staying safe when using the internet.  The games included talking about things like not sharing passwords or logins and what to do if something pop ups on the screen and you don’t know what it is or don’t like it.   We have learned that we should always tell a grown up.  Here are some photos of us playing the internet safety game with our buddies.

The buddies also helped us to play another game which was  all about emotions –  which as you will probably know is something else we are learning about this term.  Hopefully we will now be able to play this game in the classroom with each other.

We are enjoying learning all about China and rehearsals are well underway for our assembly next week.  Miss McDermott read a famous Chinese story all about the Monkey King.

In the story, the monkeys eat mangoes and collect them from the trees.  Lots of us hadn’t seen or tried mango so today for a little treat we had mango for snack.  Some of us helped Mrs Smith to cut up the mango ( and remembered our good handwashing skills first).  We did a quick hands up survey and most of us seemed to enjoy it – just like the monkeys in the story!!!

 

 

 

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!

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, Science, Technology, Thinking Skills

P2/1 Three Little Pigs House Challenge

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Today’s challenge was to build a house for the three little pigs.  We made sure that all of the teams had exactly the same resources even though our finished houses looked quite different.

The three toy pigs had to fit inside the house and then Miss McDermott tried to blow it down with the big bad wolf hairdryer! Great fun and lots of great designs today!