What a busy week! I suspect this may be the way of things for the next few weeks too as we begin our Christmas preparations. We have begun production of items for our stall at the Christmas Fair. We will be selling Reindeer lollipops and wooden christmas tree decorations. We have also been working on our business skills – working out how much each item has cost to make and deciding on a good selling price to make a profit – but not too expensive that no one will buy them!
We have also entered Tesco ‘Design a Snowman’ competition – using the template given to us by Tesco, we have come up with some pretty funky designs. Winners will be announced next week and even if none of us win anything I’m certain our designs will really brighten up the store – please keep an eye out for them in window.
In science with Mrs McVay we have been continuing to explore forces. We learned about friction this week and got to use some great equipment with lots of different surfaces to see what works for fast movement and which materials will slow things down. We have also been playing with these resources throughout the week as we learn best when we are given time to investigate and try out our own ideas and increase our understanding.
We had a go at a tricky problem solving task on Thursday. Mr Zuckerman (Charlotte’s Web) had just been to market and he was counting his profits, he had to sort his coins into 3 bags, there were several different problems, but the one most of us looked at was:
Mr Zuckerman has 10 gold coins, he sorts them into three money bags. The first bag has three fewer gold coins than the second bag. The second bag has two more gold coins than the third bag. The second bag has an odd number of coins inside. How many coins are in each bag?
How quickly can parents work this one out? Test them!
In addition to practising our numeracy skills, we were also looking at good ways to approach problem solving. Usually Mrs Kennedy tells us how to solve maths problems but not this time! We used the RUDE method! Read, Underline, Draw, Estimate. Working on maths activities like this one was quite new to most of us and it is something we will be doing more regularly as it is important to practise the skills required then questions like these are not so scary and we know how to approach them.
As many of you will remember, Mrs Kennedy is a big fan of learning through play. This is planned play with a specific set of learning outcomes. It is so important to a child’s development as it is a great way to develop many of the skills that are likely to be required in the world of work that the children will go onto: creativity, complex problem solving, STEM skills, people skills and critical thinking to name a few. This week we have been trying weaving and sewing. Not only is it very good for fine motor development and creativity, it also requires patience, problem solving, as well as resilience and it is a bit of mindfulness too. The children have been really engaged in this (far more than I actually thought they would be!) It hasn’t always worked first time but they have kept at it 🙂
We are looking forward to seeing you at the Christmas Fair next Friday, all profits from our stall can be spent by the class so we’re hoping for a successful day.
Have a good weekend, P3B and Mrs Kennedy
