Tag: cross-curricular

Super Scale! (with free maths/science resource)

scikathryn

Maths skills with a science content and links to art; everyone wins!

I am absolutely in love with these books! I first came across them at the STEM Learning Centre in their wonderful resource library and very swiftly bought copies for myself! First and foremost, the geek in me loves them because of the cool facts. The information on each page is illustrated in such a unique way and really inspires curiosity; despite each book being relatively short, children return to these again and again just to be amazed by the facts and pictures inside. On top of this, the teacher in me loves them for the great scope they have for cross-curricular learning, with links to science, maths and art. There is SO much potential here.

Actual Size is full of pictures of animals (or parts of animals, lots of them are very big!) that are drawn to scale with a note on their size and weight (in metric measurements). Readers can compare their tongue to that of a giant anteater, or see how their feet measure up to those of an African elephant.

Prehistoric Actual Size is more of the same, only this book contains prehistoric creatures and, as well as information on their size, you can see how long ago they walked the Earth.

Just a Second is a little different, but follows the same theme. This one tells you what can happen in a second, a minute, and hour and so on, drawing facts from the natural and manufactured world. For example, did you know in one minute the Moon travels 61 km around the Earth, a hamster’s heart beats about 450 times and a snail can slither a mighty 4.5 metres (measurements in this one are given in both metric and imperial).

Any teachers who have gotten this far down are probably already thinking about potential maths links; there are a huge amount of possibilities for calculating and applying maths skills. Pupils could…

Practise their measuring skills in a new context

There’s a wealth of ideas here, and a quick Twitter search will come up with some great stuff that other creative teachers have done. Pupils could:

  • Measure their classrooms and see which prehistoric creatures could fit (Would they fit through the door? What if you took the roof off? What could fit in the school hall?)
  • Investigate how many of our feet could fit into the footprint of a larger animal.
  • Create their own actual size drawings of animals. There’s loads of fun ways to approach this; pupils could draw the larger animals in whiteboard pen on the tables (see below) or recreate the very biggest ones in chalk on the playground.
  • Compare the size of domestic animals to some of the more exotic ones in the book; pupils could draw an actual size Atlas moth alongside a familiar cabbage white butterfly or a common carpet moth. They could look at how many times bigger the larger animals are or just find out the difference in size.
  • Compare their top running speed to that of a cheetah (or if you’re in Year 4 and have swimming lessons, you could compare their speed to that of a sailfish).

Apply understanding of scale

This one takes more set-up than some of the ideas above, but if you use the free resource below it shouldn’t be too tricky! In upper Key Stage 2, simply drawing animals to scale will not be challenging enough for many pupils. Using Actual Size as a stimulus, I’ve done a lesson in which pupils have scaled-down images of gigantic animals and been tasked with taking measurements, scaling them up and drawing them in actual size. As they end up quite large, we drew them directly onto the tables using whiteboard pen. (*Gasp* “On the tables Miss? Really!?”)

The resource I handed out is below, with the first two pages being cut up and pupils selecting one at a time to draw, and the last page being extra challenges that can be done as homework, or taken on as part of the lesson if your space/resources/staffing permits. The green lines are there to give children a starting point to get a rough outline done, then they choose which extra measurements they need to take to add detail. Having done this lesson with a familiar class, while on a supply day and in an interview, I’m confident in saying it’s a good one! (Yes, I got the job :))

super-scale-lesson-resourcesDownload

Carry out some research using secondary sources and pattern seeking investigations

With the range of animals and different types of information available in the books, there are lots of jump-offs for further enquiry. This could simply take the form of pupils researching other animals that aren’t in the books. If you wanted to be more adventurous though, there’s more you could do:

  • Just a Second tells us an elephant’s heart beats about 30 times a minute and a hamster’s heart beats 450 times; Is there a link between animal size and heart rate?
  • Actual Size tells us a pygmy shrew consumes twice its body weight in food each day and is a fierce predator; Do all small mammals eat this much in relation to their body weight? Is there a relationship between the size of the animal and the amount of food consumed daily?

Create a gallery

Your pupils have created wonderful pieces of actual-size art (these could be paint, pastel, pencil, collage…) so why not display them with pride!? Work like this would make for a wonderful corridor display that would catch the interest of passers by. You could even host a gallery opening and invite families and the local community to come in and see how they measure up against some of the worlds largest and smallest creatures.

Spark a discussion

Some of the facts in just a Second are quite thought-provoking. For example, in one second, around 1500 chickens are killed, and in one day people use the equivalent of 200 billion sheets of letter-size paper. Engaging in discussion around topics like this with your class will help them to see the world beyond their classroom and how everyday actions have an impact that we rarely consider.

Having just made the move up to Year 5 from Reception this September, I’m looking forward to sharing these wonderful books with my older pupils to see their thoughts; they’ll undoubtedly have many more creative questions and interesting ideas than me! If you’ve used these books in the classroom, do comment below and let me know how it went!

Please note, as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases directly made from this page.

The World in your Classroom

scikathryn

Making the most of ICT to teach & inspire pupils

When I think back to my experiences of ICT at primary school, the resounding memories are using the school’s single boxy computer to write my initials by programming a little turtle, and then a few years later getting every single question wrong on that bizarre Encarta quiz. In comparison, the opportunities available to pupils in our classrooms today are absolutely mind-blowing. Although I very much feel like I’m hitting that age where new technology isn’t quite so easy to figure out any more, I have managed to gather up a bunch of easy ideas over the years to enhance my teaching, all tried and tested!

Communicating with the World

Skype and Facetime have made it possible to invite guests to the classroom without them having to even enter the building, and they don’t cost a thing! Various organisations have realised this, and it’s now possible for your class to speak to scientists from all different walks of life without leaving their seats. I have recently been introduced to Facetime a Farmer, led by LEAF Education and was so excited by the idea that it inspired this entire blog post! Over a series of weeks, pupils can meet and chat to a farmer (and in our case, the sheep!) to get a real insight into running a farm and the science involved in successful animal-rearing and crop-growing. Such a fantastic way to increase children’s Science Capital, and clear links to a whole bunch of curriculum areas.

https://www.facetimeafarmer.com/

There’s also the amazing work done by the folks at Encounter Edu, that allows children to speak directly with scientists/explorers in far-flung parts of the world in real time. At least once a year, their team heads out on a research expedition and offers Skype chats in a couple of different formats to help children find out more about the work of research scientists. In recent years, they’ve been to the Arctic, a coral reef and down to the depths of the Indian Ocean in a submarine. Having taken part in Arctic Live in 2016 with my Year 3 class, I can honestly say it was one of the highlights of the year for the children. We had a 30 minute chat with the lovely Jamie (who was ever so patient while we worked out our technical difficulties!) that allowed our budding explorers to ask direct questions and get a good look around the base camp. Afterwards they were so inspired and, despite being far more savvy with tech than we were at their age, they still found it hard to believe that we had spoken to an actual explorer in the actual Arctic.

The website also has a whole bunch of lesson plans and a bank of fantastic images which meant that, as well as the chat, we had a bunch of lessons around the Arctic environment and the life of an explorer, without any addition to my workload! And as if that wasn’t enough, they also have ‘bite-size’ CPD for teachers on their website with tips and pointers to improve STEM teaching. Amazing!

https://encounteredu.com/live

Lights, Camera, Action!

Many schools are now lucky enough to have a class set of iPads or other tablets, which give children a whole host of new ways to report their learning in science. Modern science communication is not just about writing down your findings, so why should recording in the classroom be limited to written explanations? The ‘Spoken Language’ section of the National Curriculum requires that children (among other things) give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, speak audibly and fluently with an increasing command of Standard English, participate in discussions, presentations, performances and role play and select and use appropriate registers for effective communication. All of these objectives can be met through creating some form of presentation or piece of drama that communicates pupils’ learning to a given audience. Children could put together reports, short informational programs or vlogs that they then edit with video editing software such as iMovie or more simple apps like Tellagami or Shadow Puppet Edu. They could even add a bit of excitement to their creations by using a green screen app such as Green Screen by Do Ink. Amazingly, I found you don’t need an actual green screen to use green screen software; green display backing paper will do! Although if you were to invest in a green sheet, pupils could use it to cover themselves up and appear to be floating heads! Just be aware that if, like my previous school, you have a green uniform, the videos will look very odd!

Ditch the KWLs

My personal opinions about KWL grids notwithstanding, the use of tablets can make carrying out a pre-assessment much more engaging and, arguably more accurate. At the beginning of our new topic on Plants, we used Pic Collage to show what we know. Pupils were tasked with heading outside to take pictures of leaves, stems, roots and flowers, then using these to create picture collages that explained the purpose of each part. From the examples below, you can see that misconceptions became very clear and I was able to see what children already knew at a glance.

I printed these collages out and stuck them into the children’s books at the beginning of the topic, then at the end had them go back and ‘mark’ their work, explaining their errors and suggesting improvements. This was a great way of showing progress, and also helped me to see which children had hung on to their misconceptions and needed a little extra learning.

Although I used this technique for plants, thanks to the wealth of images available on the internet, this sort of pre-assessment could be done for topics including animal classification, evolution, forces, space and nutrition.

Stay up to Date

I think ReachOut Reporter is definitely one of my most favourite things to share with other teachers. For those of you who haven’t come across it, I’d suggest heading there immediately! They create weekly news updates that are all from the world of science and technology, and are delivered in a child-friendly way. Take a look at this news update from this summer , which includes a round-up of stories over the past year to help you get a flavour for the sort of thing they report on:

https://www.reachoutreporter.com/news-update/friendly-dolphins-moon-landing-anniversary-news-update-highlights/

New updates are added every Thursday, so the ReachOut Report became a Friday afternoon staple for my Year 3 class. They also do articles and stand-alone videos which were great for sharing with pupils. My particular favourites are the Hawaiian Pom Pom Crab and the Peacock Spider; take a look, I promise you won’t regret it!

https://www.reachoutreporter.com/video/hawaiian-pom-pom-crab/

https://www.reachoutreporter.com/video/peacock-spider/

As a side note, if you prefer your science news updates in written form, check out the Topical Science Updates from @Glazgow, added monthly here: http://topicalscienceupdates.blogspot.com/

These could make fab guided reading texts, or could be up on the board for pupils to read and discuss when they come in in the morning.

I’m aware that there will be loads of fabulous ICT opportunities that I’ve missed, so do let me know in the comments if I’ve not mentioned your favourite!