Designing a Dinosaur Zoo

In Maths, we have been designing our own Dinosaur Zoo. We have been collaborating, sharing ideas and coming to a consensus. We have set group goals together and have been reflecting on these goals.

We co-constructed a Success Criteria

1. Ask good mathematical questions
2. Understanding the question/what we are working on
3. We need to know the measurements
4. We need to include a scale e.g 1cm = 10m
5. Give the dinosaurs a generous space
6. Say the the area and perimeter for each item/ enclosure

We brainstormed some things that we could include in the Dinosaur Park:

We had to research to find the lengths of different dinosaurs and think carefully about how much room they would need in each enclosure. 

Willa: I learnt about area and perimeter. It was really fun because I love drawing and problem solving. It had lots of art in it and I had an open mind about it.

Samuel: The week was great because we designed a dinosaur zoo. I liked doing the dinosaur zoo because we got to work in groups. We were learning about squared and area. We were also learning about perimeter. Our group worked on about a 4 out of 5. We were pretty focused.

Amber: It was interesting learning about area and perimeter and doing the Dino zoo!

Marcia: This week was interesting because we learnt about area and perimeter but when we did that we also got to design a dinosaur zoo.

Ocean: I like doing the Dino zoo. I like dinosaur. I learnt about perimeter. 

The Dino Zoo Investigation is an example of a "low floor, high ceiling task." Stanford Professor, Jo Boaler says that "Mathematics classrooms should be places where students work on mathematics tasks with a low entry point but a very high ceiling – so that students are constantly challenged and working at the highest and most appropriate level for them." You can read more: How students should be taught mathematics: for parents

Boaler says, 'Mathematics classrooms should be places where students: 

Develop an inquiry relationship with mathematics, approaching math with curiosity, courage, confidence & intuition. 

Talk to each other and the teachers about ideas – Why did I choose this method?

Does it work with other cases? How is the method similar or different to methods other people used? 

Work on mathematics tasks that can be solved in different ways and/or with different solutions. 

Work on mathematics tasks with a low entry point but a very high ceiling – so that students are constantly challenged and working at the highest and most appropriate level for them. 

Work on mathematics tasks that are complex, involve more than one method or area of mathematics, and that often, but not always, represent real world problems and applications. 

Are given growth mindset messages at all times, through the ways they are grouped together, the tasks they work on, the messages they hear, and the assessment and grading. 

Are assessed formatively – to inform learning – not summatively to give a rank with their peers.

Students should regularly receive diagnostic feedback on their work, instead of grades or scores.

Summative assessments are best used at the end of courses. 

Mathematics classrooms should be places where students believe: Everyone can do well in math. 

Mathematics problems can be solved with many different insights and methods. 

Mistakes are valuable, they encourage brain growth and learning. 

Mathematics will help them in their lives, not because they will see the same types of problems in the real world but because they are learning to think quantitatively and abstractly and developing in inquiry relationship with math.'

Statistical Investigations

 As part of our Healthy Body, Healthy Mind inquiry, we have been thinking about different ways to measure our strength and fitness. 

We revisited some learning around heart rates. We had another go at recording our heart rate before and after exercise. This time, we put all that data on a dot plot. This type of graph makes it easy to see patterns! 

 

The beep test might spark fear in the hearts of many, but we absolutely loved it. Everybody gave it their all. This left us with a really interesting set of data. We looked at a different type of graph - the Stem & Leaf. We learned about how to analyse data by finding the range, mean, median and mode. We also learnt that data always has limitations but as long as you know and make clear what they are, that's all good! 

Next we looked at how to plan an investigation. Staying with the idea of fitness data, we thought of exercises that would be easy to measure. We also talked about the idea of sampling. We don't have time to measure everyone! Here are some of the things we measured:

Plank

Sit-ups

Sprint course

Standing jump

Pull-ups

Here is an example of the plan we used:

We are data detectives! Watch out for more data analysis to come. We'll do the beep test again and compare our results later in the term. 

Growth Mindset Messages in Maths

If students have a Growth Mindset in Maths it grows their Maths brains. Growth Mindset messages need to be reinforced at home and at school!

Carol Dweck, Professor of Psychology at Stanford University says that when students are in a fixed mindset they see that effort means that they are dumb. When students are in a Growth Mindset they understand that the effort and difficulty will help them to get smarter. This is when their brains grow as they are making new connections and they are "really, really learning."

She says that praising student intelligence and talent is harmful. This puts them in a fixed mindset. It makes them afraid of challenge and less resilient when they make mistakes. If they have a fixed mindset, they only care about looking smart.

It is very important that parents and teachers praise the effort, the strategies that students use and the persistence that they show. This gives students a Growth Mindset. This helps students to overcome obstacles and stick with challenges when they are struggling.

We need to make sure that we are all using Growth Mindset messages in Maths (and also in other areas of the curriculum too).

These last few weeks, we have been really proud of our students who stuck with the challenge of designing their own "Greener Worser Bay School."

These students designed a bird feeder- this is their prototype

We have also been excited to see students celebrating mistakes in Number Talks. Some of them have even started to do a mistake dance when they get things wrong. It is great to see many of our students taking risks and having a go.

Which Paper Plane Will Travel The Furthest?

For our Inquiry, we have made paper planes. Which one will travel the furthest? What makes a good paper plane?

We wrote prediction, observations and explanations (POE) to document what happened.



Greer T Hayley Henry and Nikora: We saw that Hugo's plane went further because his plane was more aerodynamic.

Hugo and Liam: Our observation was that Hugo's paper plane had the straitest folds and was slick! It went fast because it had a good throw!

Griffin, Kirsty, Ollie and Orla: Hugo's plane went the fastest and went the furthest because his sides were even and he knew how to throw it and had lots of force.

You can read more about the activity:  https://www.education.com/activity/article/Paper_Airplane_high/

How much do we Use? Statistical Investigation

Statistical Investigation:  How much do we use

At Worser Bay school we have been working on how much we waste as a statistical investigation.

I, Sam  have been working on how much paper we have been wasting we have also found that to make paper you don’t just need trees.

    

Waste of paper

13 pieces of paper per student every day at Worser Bay School.  Is that too much?                

                        By Meg, Emma R, Molly, Betty, Raiha and Hayley

Earlier last year the office printed off newsletters for each family. There are 188 people in our school and the newsletter had 4 pages so 4x188=752. so we now use technology because that wasted too much paper.

• We found out that the school orders 200 boxes of paper per year and in each box there is 5 reams of paper. In each realm there is 500 pieces of paper.

• Adding all those numbers together it is 5x500=2500x200=500,000.
• We wanted to find out how much paper each child uses everyday per year.
• There are 188 kids in our school and 200 school days a year.   
• 500,000 divided by 188=2659 divided by 200=13. So that means we use 13 pieces of paper per student every day at Worser Bay School.  Is that too much?                                                         
• That is at least 17 trees a year used for only 2 photocopiers.

• Trees produce oxygen which makes us breath. Trees are a crucial element in the human life form.
• People need to understand that more than 1 million trees are going to waste just for paper!.
• There should be a limit of paper to use each day. If we reduce this amount of paper we can make a difference.
• Usually people print off a piece of paper to read out in assembly and never use that piece of paper again. But we can reduce this amount by just using our books or technology.                         

• We use 200 boxes each year throughout the whole school. There are 5 reams of paper in each box and 500 pieces of paper in each ream. We found out that there are 500,000 pieces of paper being bought in for the school. We counted how much paper is in all the classes from there work books and there was 26000, 74800 and 76800 paper being used in the classes in books. So 500,000+26000+74800+76800= 677600.

Recommendation

If you usually get a fresh piece of paper STOP because you can just use a scrap or another side of the paper that has been used.                                                                                             

If you draw or write something that you didn’t like or make a mistake don’t just go put it the bin, reuse it.

Encourage your teachers to present more work in digital formats.