Monthly Archives: November 2014

Videos: Be prepared for an Earthquake!

Here are Year 5’s instruction videos informing you of what to do during an earthquake.

They have put in order and fully explained each step to make sure you stay safe in the event of an earthquake. This seems unlikely, you may say, but many of us go on holiday to areas which are affected by earthquakes. Birmingham also experienced an earthquake in 2008 so being prepared is useful.

Well done Year 5.

Home building project

DSCF0129

Yesterday Kestrels class finished their Earthquake home building project.

They used iPads and DIY stores to cost up the decorating costs for their homes.

They used real prices and designs and worked very well together to come to decisions about prices and designs.

They will now create one room from their home using a cardboard box. Miss Birmingham can’t wait to see their finished designs.

Earthquake project

Y5 have been continuing with their earthquake project. They have now not only designed the layout of the houses (to replace those demolished after an earthquake), but are moving on the deciding what materials they will need to decorate the house inside. Today they had to make choices about the flooring. Should they use carpet? Where would laminate or vinyl be best?

Costing
The first stage was to use the internet to find out the cost of the carpet or flooring they would like to use. Levi said – after finding that the cheapest carpet was £5.99 per sq metre. “We shouldn’t use that, because the cheapest is not always the best.”

Levi says cheapest isn't always best
Levi says cheapest isn’t always best

As a result his group decided to go with carpet which was £9.99 a sq metre.

How much was needed?
They groups then went on to decide how much was needed, by laying out model strips of laminate, carpet or vinyl and then using a calculator to multiply the cost per unit, by the amount needed.

Katie said: “I know there are 45 sections of carpet because there are 9 rows of 5.”

Katie and her group know how many sections there are to a carpet
Katie and her group

Have a look at the work they did here…

4

3

Jam sandwich algorithms

The jam sandwich ingredients with the key words list
The jam sandwich ingredients with the key words list

In Computing with Mr Baddhan today, Year 5 Kestrels spent the afternoon learning about algorithms and debugging. The children were asked to write instructions to make the sandwich-bot (Mr Baddhan), make a jam sandwich but only using key words (below).

These were the only words children could use in their instructions
These were the only words children could use in their instructions

If the bot was unable to understand the command, Mr Baddhan would say “error” so children were asked to debug and fix the code or instructions.

The children then took it in turns to become a bot using another child’s instructions.

Faith having a go at being a sandwich-bot taking instructions from another child
Faith having a go at being a sandwich-bot taking instructions from another child

The afternoon was full of laughter, fun and learning.

Children typed their instructions, they'll appear on this blog next week
Children typed their instructions, they’ll appear on this blog next week

Anansi stories

“This week we were writing Anansi stories. When we finished writing the stories we had to go though and check them for our final writing of them.” – Josh – Year 5.

We have really enjoyed looking at Anansi stories because they are so different from other stories we have read.

The internet is full of free Anansi stories. Follow the link below and read about all the life lessons Anansi learns so we don’t have to. http://www.anansistories.com/

Charitable Children in Need day

DSCF0104

What a great day seeing Year 5 Kestrels dressed in their spots. It’s fantastic to see such an effort being made. Some people wore spotty clothes, some made their clothes spotty. Miss Birmingham went for spotty socks!

Thank you to every child that donated and to those who bought extra change to put on Pudsey.

Miss Birmingham and Kestrels looks forward to finding out how much we raised.