Dojo reward cushion,Geography and our Blog group.

Class 3 asked if they could have a dojo winner mascot to keep for the week for children who gained the most dojos. When I saw the smiley face cushion I thought it would be good for the winner to go alongside all our other cushions we have for our winners to choose from.

Elise was our first winner and was happy to have "Sunny"( as the children named it )as her reward .

Geography.

As part of our rain forest topic we have been learning about climate change and its effect. Children split into groups and researched a set question. They then shared this with the others- jigsaw style so that by the end of the lesson they had learned from their peers.

One group looked at graphs of average global temperatures over the last 200 years and saw a rise in temperature. The then considered what may happen in the future if this continued.

A trend line showed this and was drawn to show the rest of the class.

The next graph was also quite dramatic as it showed the increase in carbon dioxide levels and the increase was huge from the 1800's onwards. The group discussed the industrial revolution and pin pointed this on the graph when data showed levels were increasing. From 1900 the rise was much steeper and children discussed what could happen if this continued and how it could affect our climate.

It did make us stop and think about what we were doing to our world and how we could do our bit to help save our planet.

Blog Group.

Now we have our pupil blog on the school website we randomly select 4 children each week who are responsible for deciding what to put on the blog each week. This week Adam Alex,Elise and Isabelle worked together at breaks to decide what to include and any photos.(see main web page for their work)

All ready after working during lunchtime to complete their blog-well done.Good team work.

Maths Investigations

We have been looking at Magic Squares this week, including revisiting La Sagrada Familia and Durers Magic Squares.

Casper identifying patterns within La Sagrada's Magic Square...

Ben showed different ways of making 33-the magic number.

Jasper, Rory and Matthew challenging themselves to create a 4X4 magic square of their own.

Using the digits 1to 9 the children had to place the numbers in rows and columns to make a magic square- each row, column and diagonal had to add up to the same number.

This group took 34 minutes and some tips to determine the magic number was 15 and where to place the 9 digits.

They worked well as a group trying out different ideas to find the solution.

This group took just over 4 minutes to solve the problem.

Kayley had a good idea that helped her group solve the problem in 11 minutes.

In class children work individually or in groups on several different magic square challenges-they chose which activity and how to record it.

Elise worked independently

Hannah and Ellen

White boards were useful when trying out different possible solutions.

all children engaged and enjoying their investigations

The group who had seen La Sagrada Familia before worked in collaboration to see how many patterns they could find. The theory was that the magic number was 33 so there were 33 possible patterns.We soon disproved this and came up with some theories of our own.
                                              
The carving of the magic square from La Sagrada Familia in Barcelona.

The group systematically recording their findings.

Super group work and problem solving.