So today in xp outdoors Crew Hamill made stickmen . They had to use the natural resources from our forest area
Stickmen
Category : Crew Hamill 24/25
Crew Building – Time to Thrive!
Today, Crew Hamill were extremely lucky as they got to spend some time with Ms Haddock and take part in a few crew building activities. For our first activity, we played ‘spiders web’ in which we had to work as a mini crew to get ourselves through the gaps of the spiders web without touching the chains. We started off easy by going through the middle hole but then it was made more difficult when we had to get lower down to go through the bottom hole and somehow get higher up to get through the top hole. This is where we really needed our crew mates! In the second activity, we had to get from one side of the room to the other without touching the ‘water’. We could only stand on ‘land’ (within the hoops). We had to figure out the best way to get everyone safely from one side of the room to the other without anyone landing in the water.
‘To have’ Verbs
Continuing in our mission to learn all there is to know about verbs, Crew Hamill began investigating ‘to have’ verbs. We learned that the ‘to have’ verb shows when you own something or hold something. We played a game of Left Side/Middle/Right Side in which we had to run to the part of the room that had the correct verb. We then worked in mini crews to identify some verbs within sentences before completing our exit tickets independently.
We learned that:
Has is used when talking about 1 noun.
Have is used for more than one as well as with you and I.
Had is used to show the past tense.
Library Time
On Friday, Crew Hamill were able to spend a little bit of time in the library! We loved being able to choose a book to read for pleasure and sitting with our friends to enjoy them.
Past or Present? To Be Verbs
In grammar, Crew Hamill have continued to learn about the ‘to be’ verb and understanding past and present. We had the Carcroft Time Machine to help us decide if given sentences were in the past tense or the present tense. We then used our knowledge to organise sentences into past and present tense.
The Phases of The Moon
To continue Case Study 1, we have looked in more detail at the Moon and how it orbits Earth. We learned that the Moon is 239,000 miles away from Earth and that it takes just over 27 days to orbit the Earth. Did you know that we only ever see one side of the Moon? Amazingly, we learned that the Moon doesn’t actual have it’s own light and that we only see it because the light from the Sun reflects off the surface of the Moon. As the Earth orbits our planet, the amount of the Moon we can see differs and this splits into eight phases – New Moon, Waning Gibbous, Waning Quarter, Waning Crescent, Full Moon, Waxing Gibbous, Waxing Quarter and Waxing Crescent. We learned that when the Moon is in the ‘Waxing’ phase, the amount of the Moon we see gets bigger and when it is in its ‘Waning’ phase, we see less of the Moon. We then worked in mini crews to recreate the phases of the Moon using Oreos! We even got to eat them afterwards!
The Movement of The Earth
To kick start Case Study 1, we looked at the movement of Earth in relation to the Sun and Moon. We did a lot of research by watching and interactive video that gave us quiz questions throughout, testing that we were paying attention and taking in all of the facts. We then came together as a crew to make a video that detailed everything we learned. Our main facts were:
- The Earth moves in two different ways: 1. It rotates on its axis. 2. It orbits around the Sun.
- It takes the Earth 24 hours (1 day) to rotate fully on its axis.
- It takes the Earth 365 and a quarter days (1 year) to orbit the Sun.
- When we are facing towards the sun, we get day time.
- When we are facing away from the sun, we get night time.
- The Sun appears to move across the sky but it doesn’t.
- The Sun stays where it is and Earth’s rotation makes it disappear.
You can see our video by scanning this QR code:
Ordering numbers to 10,000
To consolidate our learning on ordering numbers to 10,000, we each became a 4-digit number! To begin with, we were able to choose any 4-digit number we liked but then we were given specific criteria for our numbers. For example, each digit had to have a different value. We then had to order ourselves from smallest to biggest or biggest to smallest, depending on the instruction we were given. We worked really hard to make sure that the value of the person to one side of us was bigger than us and the value of the person to the other side was smaller. We used our maths vocabulary to have a conversation about why we should be in a certain position. For example, “My tens column has a higher value so I have to bie bigger.” Shoutout to Jenson who was able to become the teacher during this lesson and instruct people where they should be going and why! To end our lesson, we were given four 4-digit numbers that we had to order from smallest to biggest on a whiteboard. Miss was very excited when we all managed to complete this independently!
Building Background Knowledge – Movement of the Planets
Today, we began building our background knowledge on our solar system and how the planet within it orbit (move around) the Sun. We worked in mini crews to make notes as we watched videos that detailed each of the 8 planets and how they each orbit the Sun. Every time we watched something new, we changed the colour of our pen to build upon the knowledge we had already gained from the previous video. We are going to use this knowledge to write a paragraph of what we now know about how the planets move in our next expedition lesson.
Ordering 4 digit numbers
Today, Crew Hamill used their place value knowledge to begin ordering 4 digit numbers to 10,000. We used our place value arrow cards to build our numbers so that we could visually see the numbers we were working with. We then began following the steps needed to decide which order they should go in, whether they be in ascending order (smallest to biggest) or descending order (biggest to smallest). We started by looking at the column with the highest value (our thousands) and then working down the columns until we found the digit that would help us decide whether the numbers were bigger or smaller. We were then able to apply this knowledge to some fluency questions in our books.
