mapping | mcps

Maths has been our main focus this week in P5a. We have been learning all about position and direction. At the start of the week we got out our Atlases during IDL, where we had to locate where the Rainforests were in the world. We used our knowledge about using a non-fiction book to help us locate this information in the Atlas. One of the children spoke about co-ordinates and was able to explain to the others what a co-ordinate was, the other children were then challenged to find a main airport and provide the co-ordinate for it.

We then started to think about the language that we could use to give someone directions, what the children came up with was amazing, things such as; co-0rdinates, 360, 180 and 90 degrees, clockwise, anti-clockwise, full, 1/2 and 1/4 turn, left and right, backwards and forwards and the 8 compass points. We used our new language skills to write direction of how to get from one point of a map to another. We took our learning outside and we had to direct each other from different points in the playground using all the language that we had learned. We quickly learned that when blind folded we were unsure as to what direction N,E,S and W was and we had to change our language, we all had great fun.

We have also been learning how to ask good questions in maths. Miss Anderson and the children had to use their questioning skills to find out what the number was and the only answer could be yes or no. Some of the good questions that were asked were:

Is it an odd/even number?

Does it have 2/3/4 digits?

Is it a prime number?

Is it a multiple of?

The children were then given the opportunity to work with a partner and get them to ‘guess’ the number. This is a great game that can be played at home to improve questioning skills.

Hope you all have a fantastic September weekend.

Miss Anderson

LI: We are learning to explore the life cycle of plants.

We are learning to investigate what helps plants to grow.

SC: I can state the different ways that plants can reproduce.

I can design an investigation to test the effects of fertiliser on plants.

Last week we kicked off our new topic ‘How does your garden grow?’ and over the last fortnight we have been busy learning all about how plants grow and what might help them grow faster. Last week we looked at what a plant actually needs to grow, they’re not much different from us as they need food, water, air and sunlight. We thought that we could investigate whether fertiliser made any difference to the rate of growth so we planted our own sunflowers, watered half with just water and half with plant food mixed with water. We also decided to see if compost made any difference so we dug up some soil from the garden in the playground and used some that to plant too. It only took a few days for our sunflowers to start growing and we can see a difference in them every day. We will let you know the results of our experiment when they are fully grown. Once our sunflowers are fully grown we are going to plant them in the gardens within the playground.

This week we have been learning to explore similarities and differences between two outdoor areas. The children were split into groups and were each given an area of the playground to explore. Armed with a clipboard and paper and an ipad, the children had to explore what was in their designated area, draw a sketch and take some photographs. Back in the classroom the children mapped their area onto an A3 sheet of paper where they had to replicate their area using the information they had gathered. Each map had to have a key so that we knew what was on their map. The children all worked very hard on their map using all sorts of resources to highlight different areas and they all look amazing. Once the children had created their maps they then had to present their findings to the rest of the class. All of the children’s presentation skills have developed since the beginning of the year and were confident in presenting their findings.