Transport in the Future

 We were posed a question about what will transport of the future be.

The consensus was that people would have flying vehicles.

This created a lot of discussion.

• would it cause pollution
• would it ruin our view - we won't be able to see a beautiful sky - it would be full of vehicles
• would people be able to fly whereevre they want or would there be roads up there - we decided you would probably wear a VR headset which would show the roads.
• would there be different heights that people would fly at - e.g. 18 year olds at a low height and more experienced drivers higher up.
• What would happen if you ran out of fuel - would you just drop out of the sky or would your vehicle know you are going to run out and just take you down to the ground.

All interesting thoughts.

Brain Investigation

 We had a discussion about what the brain does. Here are some of our thoughts.

We also started a discussion about how our brain dreams and what makes nightmares.

We also discussed what our brain doesn't do - control other people, always make decisions that are good for us.

Squiggles

 Today we had a series of squiggles that we had to complete. We could make the squiggles into anything we wanted. We then had to use 3 of our squiggles to make up a story. 

It was not easy.

Power Thinkers Keys

 Lola and Reece decided to rank animals according to their level of power - then decided to create some actions that go with it.

One of the challenges was to make a paper plane fly without using human power - throwing or dropping it.

Here are some of the attempts.

Power

 We have been learning about power during our sessions.

• Power takes many forms

• Power is always present

• Power has an impact

• Power can be natural or constructed

• Power can be potential or actual

We had to make a model of power.

Donald Trump

Power of protest

Waka - physical power

Power of nature

Tornado

Waves

lightning bolt

waka on the waves

Voting

 

Renaissance

 We built gyrocopters based on the Leonardo Da Vinci's design.

Intensities

 Children played a game thinking of how to dial up or down a situation. We were looking at different strategies to bring intensities to an appropriate level.

E.g you go to an arcade and the noise is really bothering you

Leonardo Da Vinci

 This week we took a deep dive into Leonardo Da Vinci and his passion for birds and flight. He wrote over 35000 words about birds and flight. We looked in particular at one of his famous drawings. We then chose to draw our own bird wing or follow a tutorial re how to draw Leonardo's wing.

Parent morning

Last week we had several parents join us for our MindPlus session. Hopefully it gave them an insight into what we do in our classes.

 

The Wright Family

 Today we did an activity that involved coordinating our listening skills with our motor skills.

We listened to a story aboout the Wright family and everytime we heard the word wright/right we had to pass an object to the right, and everytime we heard the word left we passed to the left.

For the first paragraph we were so focussed on the passing that we didn't really grasp the message of the story.

We improved as the story went on.

Boggle

 We played a game of boggle this morning - the first time for many.

The children have 16 letters and a time limit of 4 minutes to come up with as many 3 or more letter words as they can.

They are not allowed to repeat letters in a word but can use each letter in a new word.

This is great for spelling rule practice.

This is the boggle we did this morning.

Example

fingers

beat

beats

basil

ring

rings

whale

whales

Raising the Flag - Tech Challenge

The challenge was to raise a flag at least 20 cm.

It had to be a freestanding and we had to see both sides of the flag.

There was a lot more planning before the construction began this time.

Counting to 9

The children had the challenge of counting to 9. 

If 2 people said the same number at the same time they had to start from 1 again.

They discovered that if they went around the table they could reach 9.

We discussed how we could do it without going around the table or talking to each other.

Six Word Sentence Challenge

Our task for today.

Write a six word story that sums up something really important about ‘gifted’ for you.

Sim - a mathematical brain teaser

 

This week's question

What animal would make a great driver and why?

Here are a few of our responses.

 

Social Scientists

 In this activity the children had to answer questions based on what they noticed about the contents of the person's bag.

Multiple Intelligences

 Today we watched a video about 9 multiple intelligences. The children then had to complete a survey which helped them identify the intelligences that they identified with.

They then had to create a word cloud using some of the words that describe them.

Technology Challenge - Build a Roller Coaster

The Challenge

Using just a piece of cardboard, some straws, scissors and tape design and engineer a roller coaster for a ping pong ball to navigate. 

You must have 

• a beginning and an end 

• a track that is continuous

• at least 1 turn

You have 5 mins to plan, and 30-40 mins to make.  You may test throughout.