Oak Week Beginning 4th March 2024
We have had lots of enrichment tasks this week, the only normal day with normal lessons was Monday!!
On Monday we recorded temperature using the BBC Micro:bits to measure and display the maximum and minimum temperatures of a location around the school. It was a lot more involved this week and there were several layers of code to create to get the Micro:bit to do what we wanted. The children monitored the results all week and they will analyse them and create some graphs using Excel in next week's lesson.
On Tuesday we had our Big Creme Egg Debate ; are they a good or bad treat. The children had written a persuasive script last week and this week turned it into a debate. We had 6 mini debates and after each round the children voted for the winning side. The final score was very close and there were some points to share as they drew a few rounds!. To help decide a final winner, each side chose one expert persuader from each side and they had an unscripted, un-rehearsed head to head. It was magnificent and the two girls did a fabulous job. They voted again and the draw points went to the Bad side making them the overall winners by 2 votes! They were very pleased with themselves and their chocolately reward too. (In fact all of them got a mini creme egg :))
Wednesday was very exciting as in the morning many of the class went to a netball tournament which they won: whoop whoop!! See Mrs Thornton's Sports news blog for more details here. In the afternoon we took part in a series of activities all about China. Our visiting speaker from Engage with China was an expert and we learnt lots of wonderous facts about this fascinating place. We learned about the location, how huge the population is and all about the wide variety of landscapes, climates and animals that live in this vast country. We learned all about one of China's biggest exports; tea and had a go at some Chinese calligraphy writing a range of Mandarin words. It was a very informative afternoon where the children learnt lots about the various aspects of China and it made some of them think it would be place they'd like to visit in the future.
On Thursday afternoon, we had a visit from a STEMWorks ambassador and we took part in a STEM building challenge where we had to complete a brief in role as a civil engineer. The children watched some video clips of civil engineering works actually taking place in Worcester and had to solve a real life problem; they needed to build something that would move a bridge into place and had at least one moving mechanism such as wheels or a pulley, The children worked in pairs and had an hour to complete the challenge. There was some great team work going on and the children used their creativity and construction skills to make some brilliant models. The STEM representative chose one group as overall winners who may represent our school in the Worcestershire final in June. Two other groups were highly commended. It was great fun!
And of course Friday was World Book Day in school and it was fabulous to see all the different costumes that the children got dressed up in. They looked amazing. As part of our day, we also got involved in an interactive Mars week activity (also run by STEM) whereby we linked up with lots of other schools to take part in a Moon/Mars Experience. We followed this up with a guided reading activity based on a non-fiction text all about Mars and then in the afternoon, we did some activities based on the book the whole school focused on called The Day The Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt.
What a busy week we will be back to normal next week!!
