This week the Project Manager at SHINE was ‘feeling under the weather’ and the tutors and students ‘didn’t lift a finger to help’. “Don’t let success go to your head” she said. They all started to help, they knew they were ‘skating on thin ice’. Yes, you guessed it, at SHINE we have been learning all about idioms by acting them out and trying to make up some of our own. ‘Putting your head in a crocodile’s mouth’ was one the Sharks group came up with. In maths, we have been having just as much fun learning Japanese multiplication, there are Youtube videos that can help you multiply in different ways. Look out, next week,for pictures of the costumes that we are making.
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Maths and photography at the BLC update
Over the last few weeks Y4 pupils from Hill Mead, St John the Divine and Loughborough Primary School have been using art, design and photography to learn, develop and hone their maths skills. Learning about shapes, angles and the importance of accurate measuring among other mathematical principles.
Week One involved learning about creating 3D shapes including cubes and tetrahedrons with week two reviewing this work and creating 3D structures in teams.
Week 3 involved making a pin hole camera using every day materials such as tin foil, cardboard boxes, tape and black card. The importance of accuracy in measuring in order to find and make the pin hole in the centre of the made cube shaped box was practised and all students created and personalised their own pin hole camera.
Week 4 pupils went out into the playground to use their own pin hole camera to to take a photo. Pupils were instructed in relation to using estimation of distance in relation to taking their photo, estimating time in relation to exposure, and the difference between taking a photo in the shade and in the sun. Many pupils marvelled at the lack of need for electricity to take the photo.
A dark room was also made in each school, converting rooms such as meeting rooms or resource rooms into environments where the pupils photos could be developed safely. In small groups, all pupils with aprons and gloves on, entered the dark room and took their photos through the developing process whilst back in the classroom pupils learnt about the different measurements of chemicals needed to develop their picture and revised their learning with quizzes and worksheets.
Next week pupils will review the photos they took and will also work with digital cameras to continue their learning using photography with maths.
Eliot Now at The Carnegie Library 3 – 31 March
Eliot Now at Carnegie Library
Eliot Now at Carnegie Library
Eliot Now at Carnegie Library
Eliot Now at Carnegie Library
Exhibition of primary schools work for Eliot Now opens at Carnegie Library
The exhibition of some of the words and pictures produced by BLC primaries as part of the Eliot Now project is now open for viewing at the Carnegie Library, Herne Hill Road, SE24 0EG and gives a taste of some of the wonderful work produced by the year 5 classes in the BLC as part of the project, generously funded by Clore Poetry and Literature Awards. If you would like to see the exhibition, it runs until 31st March. Contact 020 7926 6050 (Carnegie Library) for opening times. Here we give a taster of some of the work.
pinhole camera making in the BLC
Last week children from 4 year 4 classes in BLC got out their rulers, pens, card and tape to transform a cardboard box into a pinhole camera, capable of taking photos. The whole process requires very careful and accurate measuring skills, which the children admirably showed. 120 pinhole cameras were made over 2 days, ready this week for taking pictures. Thankfully the sun is shining which will greatly help as the children time carefully and wait for enough light to go into the camera, onto the photographic paper at the back of their carefully sealed camera boxes. Great to see this project underway with workshop leaders from Fotosynthesis and their team of volunteers.
12 classes of year 5 children celebrate Old Possums Book of Practical Cats
On 10th February the BLC held 2 back-to-back performance presentations of just some of the poetry written by our talented year 5 children across the cluster, inspired by TS Eliot’s Old Possums Book of Practical Cats. 240 children gathered at The Ritzy cinema screen 1 in Brixton for the events, and all classes performed poems they had written together as a class, as well as some fine solo writing and performances. What was particularly striking, was the way the children brought the structure of Eliot’s poetry into their own work, as well as experimenting with vocabulary and rhyme. In many ways, the study of these Eliot poems is secondary school stuff, but clearly the year 5s had worked to a very high level and had produced fabulous work. Now some of the poetry and artwork inspired by the project is being prepared to be exhibited in Carnegie Library in Lambeth during March. Thanks again go to the poet Jared Louche for helping the children discover Eliot’s work, to all the staff who have supported the children and to Clore Poetry and Literature Awards for funding the project.
The Brixton Learning Collaborative 