Making a Viking sun compass
Did you know that the Vikings were one of the first groups of people to invent the sun compass? Where would we be (literally) without inventing a way to navigate the globe?
This week, we have combined our statistics in maths and our Time Travel – Inventions learning to create a sun compass of our own. Hopefully we find out which way is North in the process!
We started by drawing a 9 x 2 table to record time and shadow length.
(We practised some measuring skills at the same time.)
At set intervals throughout the day – as long as the sun was playing ball – we went outside to create our sun compass.
First, we held a metre ruler perpendicularly to the floor to create a shadow. Using tape measures, we found out how long the shadow was and placed an ‘x’ in chalk at its tip.
As you can see from our tables, it was 333cm at 10am- much longer than we predicted!
Challenge your child! True or false? Explain why:
- The shadow was longest at 2pm
- The shadow was shortest at 11:30
- The shadow was 147cm at 10:30
After some intervals, we made predictions about the length of the shadow with varying degrees of success:
By the end of the day, we had made lots of chalk marks on the floor. By drawing a line from our starting point to the closest section of the curve, we have found North!
Active travel in October – week three winner
Well done to our week three winner who made active journeys to school every day last week.
Our active travel section on the website has recently been updated. Have a look at some of the initiatives we take part in to encourage a happy and healthy start to the school day.
Living and Learning – Democracy
This week, we’ve based our learning around our rights and responsibilities – I can take part in democratic decisions.
First, we wrote down what we knew already about democracy. Then, we watched a video from a trusted news source (Newsround) and wrote down what we had learned. Challenge your child: What was the red line on the floor for in the House of Commons?
Through our discussions, we defined some key words…
… and devised some questions that we wanted to know the answer to.
An interesting discussion arose surrounding the age of voting. (Finlay asked: ‘Why do we have to be 18 to vote?’) Some of us thought that it should be lowered because politics affects children, too. Others thought 18 years of age was appropriate because you are legally an adult with enough life experience.
In the interest of all things democratic, we had a vote on the matter.
Should we change the voting age?
21 out of 28 people said yes. 7 out of 28 people said no.
Zakariya noticed that 28 is in the 7 times table: 4 lots of 7 = 28.
We discussed that 7 out of 28 is the same as saying 1 out of 4 or one quarter. That’s the same as saying 25/100 which is equal to 25%.
Using this knowledge, we worked out that 21 out of 28 is the same as saying 3 out of 4 or three quarters.
“It must be 75 out of 100,” said Maggie. Or even 75 one hundredths or 75%!
1 quarter + 3 quarters = 1
25% + 75% = 100%
7 + 21 = 28
Now we know that 75% of Year 5 think the voting age should be changed.
Next, we had another anonymous vote: Which group would you change the voting age to?
The 15-17 category had the majority.
Good luck to all the candidates standing in this year’s school council elections.
Living and Learning: Confident Me self-esteem and body confidence workshop
Recently, Year 5 and 6 took part in a Confident Me self-esteem and body confidence workshop led by representatives from Dove and Unilever.
Body image forms part of our Living and Learning later in the year and as children comment they enjoy visitors delivering Living and Learning, we were keen to run this workshop once again.
The Confident Me Workshop is one of the Dove Self-Esteem Project’s programmes. It addresses issues of body confidence and low self-esteem. The workshop covers topics such as: appearance, beauty and body image and examines how images of models, actors and celebrities are fabricated or manipulated to portray a ‘perfection’ against which our kids often measure themselves. Most of all, the workshops help young people develop the skills and behaviours that lead to positive self-esteem and body confidence.
Resources are available to parents to support and follow up this learning at home.
Active travel in October – week two winner
Well done to our week two active travel winner (08 – 12 October) who was randomly selected to receive the latest £10 voucher.
Our week three winner will be announced early next week.
We have a final weekly prize to award and also a prize for someone who has made an active journey to school every day in October. These prizes will be awarded straight after half term once our Living Streets travel tracker data is available.
Remember an active journey can be walking, biking, scooting or parking away from the school gate and striding the last part of the journey.
Lost property
School Council are involved in a project to try and reduce the amount of lost property we have at school.
Starting this Friday, lost property will be available to look through in the playground to hopefully reduce the pile we have already this term!
Naming your child’s items helps to get things back to their owners so we will also be offering a clothing name labelling service for 20p per item. Profits will go to our school charity, Make-a-Wish.
New additions to the library – thank you, school councillors
At their final meeting, our current school councillors spent time, using part of their budget, choosing new books for our library.
From sport books to science books, there’s a great selection. The books will soon be available to borrow from the library.
School Council elections
In our whole school assembly today, we launched this year’s School Council election process. Our School Council is one of the ways that children are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.
The election process allows children to develop an understanding of one of the British Values, democracy, with two representatives from each class, chosen democratically by their peers.
Our current school councillors spoke about their role over the last year and the qualities needed to be an effective school councillor.
These included:
- use the 8 Rs for learning
- be respectful and polite
- help others
- be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
- share and be confident with your ideas
- let others speak
- accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
- be friendly and approachable
- follow our school rules and make good choices in class and around school
Watch out for the whole school homework this week all about the election and democracy, ready for the elections next Thursday 25 October.
Bike and run at the Brownlee Centre
The Brownlee Centre is a great facility on our doorstep.
These bike and run sessions, run by the Brownlee Foundation, are open to all children, any ability, aged 8-14. Why not give it a tri?
Homework heroes
Year 5, who are brilliantly creative, submitted some fantastic homework this week.
Kirsten recreated a Roman building and drew a solider who was carrying a shield and sword.
Another submission used scratch (a computing program used for coding interactive stories).
Poppy displayed facts – ‘Did you know?’ style – alongside a Roman road.
Eve made a model of an aqueduct which is a bridge with amazing arches used to transport water.
Evie’s fact book, which was handwritten, must have taken her ages!
Lots of the submissions contained brilliant artwork! Well done, everyone!
Challenge your child!
Can you spot the examples of parentheses or relative clauses? You might see:
- ()
- – –
- ,,
