Minecraft and Rocks and Soils

We recently taught some of our introductory work for our science module on rocks and soils. As part of this discussion, we were discussing that rocks from under the soil can be seen around the world. To demonstrate this we nipped into our Minecraft world and had a fly around. Within the game, we were able to see places where rocks appeared above ground.

Then we did some digging under the soil and discovered rock below the surface.
                           

Finally, we even managed to show how igneous rock is formed by pouring water on lave to make obsidian.

Of course we used lots of other real world resources showing how rocks are really formed, what lava and magma are and different types of rocks, but it was engaging for the children and, more importantly, linked to a context that they understood. A number of children went, "Oh yeah, I've done that" once they got over the fact that obsidian was a real life rock. Next step is to try and build a portal in the classroom.

#LikeAGirl Assembly

In the past, we've used videos in assemblies. In the main, these have been courtesy of Assembly Tube (and some we've made ourselves too). If you've not already checked out that resource, we suggest you take a look. One of our favourites from Assembly Tube is The Impossible Dream assembly.

At the start of this month, our vice principal shared the following videos with us:

With these videos, and some we added, we lead an excellent assembly with Years Five and Six. 

At the start, we showed the introduction of the first video, which showed people running in a silly way when asked to 'run like a girl'. This got a giggle from the mixed-gender audience and then we cut straight to this:

Chrissie Wellington being a real inspiration for us given her amazing achievements and, despite these, she is still relatively less well-known (we are always eager to do some Chrissie Wellington plugging). We discussed what an amazing athlete she is.

Then, because we are actually boys and feel that it is just as important that we get rid of stereotyping boys, we showed an extract from this video demonstrating Mad Chadd and his stunning dancing:

Rather sneakily we added this, in part, because we are both teaching dance next term and it allows us to demonstrate that it is not alright to say that dancing is "only for girls."

Moving on, we discussed how pernicious the phrase "like a girl" has become, both as an insult and, more worryingly, as a normal everyday comment. We also talked about how important it was to avoid other 'isms' through stereotyping and from this had a general discussion about moving forward with doing what people want.

Personally, we felt the most important part of the assembly came at the end: we discussed not letting others limit us or even limiting ourselves because of generalities and stereotypes. We ended by asking the children to ask a simple question if they are told they are not allowed to do something because they are a boy or a girl: why not?

Maths and Mariokart

One of the best video games in recent times (and much further back) is the consistently excellent Mariokart available on the various Nintendo devices.

We recently looked at how we can make use of this video game to do some 'real-life' context problem solving.

To start we asked the question: how fast is Mario driving?

Mathematically, this led to an excellent discussion on what information we needed to know in order to answer the question. We talked about units of measurement, distance and (inevitably from a  scientific point of view) the different variables we needed to control. After this discussion, we were able to move forward with carrying out some experimental races.

In order to keep things accurate we used the time trial race (which took out the danger of flying mushrooms or turning into a rocket); avoided the use of speed up pads and completed the race several times.

 Practical maths part one was finding an average from the times we got after the first round of races. Then we needed to find out the distance of the track we were racing on. Initially, we could not find the distance so we fired off a message to Nintendo and they, brilliantly for the class, replied and directed us to a different wiki site to the one we had visited in our early research. Now, armed with our times and distances, the class was able to try and find the speed average speed that Mario was travelling at around the track.

The kids were very excited to take part in this activity and eagerly engaged with the problem. All children were able to take part in the initial maths discussion and, working in mixed ability groups, were able to come up with a solution.

Next we are going to work on coming with comparative speeds for the different vehicles in Mariokart.

World War II Letters

Our next topic is to focus on a period of historical significance and we are looking at the events in and around Dunkirk during World War II. As well as being inspiring and well resourced, one of the reasons it is so interesting is that it is easier for the children to relate to the people who lived through this period of such importance. Our last history topic was the Mayas and, whilst fascinating because it was something the children knew nothing about, it was hard for children to relate to a life experience that was so far removed from their own.

In order to help our children understand the significance and participation of real people in World War II we have made use of actual letters from participants in in the war. This Canadian letters and images website (www.canadianletters.ca) is an excellent and moving source of information including letters, photos and other documents about real people who took part in the war and is the source of all the resources we have used in our display.

Initially we chose two main people to base our work and display on. Daniel Serrick and Ernest Underwood. Both of these people were Canadians who fought in the war and the letters they wrote or are about them reflect two horrible experiences including Daniel who, unfortunately, did not survive
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The display we designed was inspired by a recent visit to the stunning Imperial War Museum North, whose exhibits are all built around the personal experiences of people from conflicts throughout the recent past. Every half an hour or so they also project onto their enormous backdrops a multi-media presentation using memories and pictures. We strongly recommend that if you are in Manchester you pay a visit to this engaging museum.

Our display, to begin with, is based on sharing personal stories of people from the war. We chose a couple of letters from the individuals we had picked to reflect some of the life experiences they were having during the war or from people around them as they process what had happened to them. This allows the children to understand the impact on friends and families as well as the individuals involved. Linked to this, we also chose a photo of them so that children could see that these were real people.

The children were interested to read about them and, even though it is still challenging, were better able to understand some aspects of their lives especially when they talk about the day-to-day aspects of their lives.

A Powerpoint containing the resources for the display can be found in our Dropbox folder here. 

The next step, again inspired by the visit to the museum, is to add an audio-visual element to the display perhaps using some the augmented reality tools that are available.