We have been experimenting with sounds. Through discovery and natural curiosity, we can make quiet sounds and loud sounds using recycled materials. We have made a drum from an orange carrier bag, a painttub and some string. We habe made a guitar from a cereal box and elastic bands and a rain stick using a cardboard tube with cut up pieces of straw inside. Our sound tubes makes a whizzing sound when we rotate it. We have enjoyed experimenting with sounds.
Category Archives: Curriculum Areas
Sports Breakfast
Today at our Breakfast Club we had a sports breakfast. Porridge, muesli, weetabix, bagels, yogurt and smoothies were on the menu. The children took part in a variety of sport activities. Daniel said, “It was the best day ever.”
Sports Day 2016
The sun was shining on Mid Calder this morning as P1-7 went up to the field to take part in Sports Day. There was a range of activities on offer including: football shoot out, welly throwing, obstacle races, hurdles and lots more. A big thank you to Mrs Mitchell, our P.E. specialist for organising such a successful and enjoyable Sports Day and thank you to all the parents and families who came along to support the event.
Congratulations to Calderwood who were the overall winners!
STEM Open Morning
This morning, MCPS opened its doors to parents, carers and friends in order for pupils to exhibit their learning through our STEM (Sciences, Technologies, Engineering ad Mathematics) contexts for learning. This included:
P1: The Garden
P2-3: The Great Deserted Island
P4-5: Project Planetarium
P6-7: CSI
Our guests spent time in their children’s classes taking part in a wide range of activities including; designing space crafts of the future, information sessions, demonstrations, Science investigations and lots more.
We also used this time to ask parents for their input into our Curriculum Rationale, the the results of which will be shared soon.
Thank you to everyone who came along to support the event.
Caterpillars
Beebots
3..2..1.. Mission 4 accomplished!
We are learning to research and report on scientific news items
A successful report will include:
- Mission name
- Date it happened
- Information about the significant event
- Country responsible
- Duration- 1 minute
This week, Primary 5 received Mission 4 as part of their IDL context, Project Planetarium. We were challenged to work in our home teams to research two significant space missions from throughout history. We then worked as a class to put together a timeline of space exploration in our very own documentary, A History of Space Travel.
To prepare, each home team had to select an envelope containing two space missions they were to research, along with some QR codes which linked to useful websites they could use. We also had a set of useful links posted on our Yammer page and could use our own or the schools devices to access these.
Most teams decided to share the work between them, researching a different mission each and then sharing their findings with each other. Next, we began to rehearse our news reports, utilising the skills we have been developing in drama, and, finally, we filmed them. So fasten your seat belts and prepare for lift off as we blast you into the past on a journey through space travel…
Strive to survive with P3!
In P3 over the last two weeks, we have been learning about the features of a brochure/leaflet. We are going to write a leaflet all about ‘How to Survive on a Deserted Island’ which links well with our IDL topic.
We now know that a brochure has to have a front cover with a title, some paragraphs, bright colours to stand out and context appropriate words/adjectives. We looked at some examples of brochures and discussed the features with our talking partners. Then, using this knowledge, we started to plan ideas for our first section, ‘How to make a shelter’ by looking at these 3 questions;
Why would you need a shelter?
What materials would you use?
Where would you build it and when would you build it?
To help us get some advice on how to build a good shelter, we watched a video from top survival expert, Bear Grylls.
From watching this video, we were then able to plan and create a context appropriate word bank with some words like venomous, dangerous, hypothermia, as black as…, torrential and terrified. Some materials that we could use are Moho bark, Bayleaf palm leaves, Kahuna palm and thatching palm. We had some great discussion of the meaning of these words when creating this word bank.
“I was practising using capital letters and full stops at the beginning and end of my sentences”- Hana C.
“I learned that Bear Grylls can teach us a lot about surviving on a deserted island”- Teagan.
“First I didn’t know what brochures were, but now I do. I also wasn’t sure who Bear Grylls was, but now I know a little bit about him and I enjoyed it”- Theo.
“At the start of writing I found it quite tricky, but after using the word bank I was more confident with my writing and it turned out pretty good”- Rebekah.
The Great Deserted Island STEM Challenge Two
LI. We are learning to develop our knowledge of measurement, forces and scientific processes to solve a problem.
SC. We can plan, design and build a bridge that will hold weight.
SC. We will test and discuss what happened, what worked and what we would do differently next time.
This week P2 have been helping Sir Harley Houndstooth III survive on the deserted island by constructing a bridge to help him cross a lagoon. First we chunked the challenge and thought about how we were going to help Sir Harley. We decided to build bridges to help him cross the lagoon. Next we drew bridge designs and we used these designs to help us build a bridge using lolly pop sticks, string and cello tape. We all worked well in our teams and were able to able some of the team work targets that we had set in challenge one. We then tested our bridges by seeing how long they would be able stay up with one rubber on them spanning a 25cm gap between two tables and without falling down. We are all really enjoying our IDL context and are looking forward to the next challenge.
A New Family in the Nursery
The children have been very excited to meet The Grass Head Family. They conducted a science experiment to see if they could grow grass seeds using old tights, compost, grass seeds, cardboard eyes, yoghurt pots and string. MEET THE GRASS HEAD FAMILY.
We are measuring our plants on a daily basis. The children will enjoy cutting and styling the hair once it has grown enough.