This term in Primary 6 we have been learning about The Victorians, we’ve enjoyed learning about what life was like for the rich and poor, in particular for children finding out what jobs they did and what school was like, by having a Victorian school afternoon. We had strict rules we had to follow which many of us found tricky and funny.
The last 2 weeks we’ve had a focus on Victorian Inventions, by leading our own learning we worked in a group to pick an invention to research and to present Dragon’s Den style. We chose how to make and present our invention we had to find out key facts and then had to persuade 4 ‘dragon’s’ they needed our inventions and to invest and part with their shillings.
Inventors hard at work using the ‘Makedo’ carboard modelling tools to create their invention prototypes.
Presenting our inventions to the ‘dragons’, we had very impressive models including a hoover, flying machine, typewriter, cars, bike, fire escape and cameras, our dragons were a tough panel asking lots of questions and even testing some inventions out before agreeing to invest and part with their money.
While completing our inventions task we created a meta skills tracking page on our Onenote, each day we reflected on our learning identifying which skills we had used.
We rounded off our our week with a STEM challenge after learning about Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was a famous inventor and engineer building bridges, tunnels, railroads and the first steam ship that travelled across the Atlantic Ocean. We were set a bridge building challenge although unlike Isambard we didn’t have 33 years to build our bridge we had 45minutes. First we had to decide which kind of bridge to build, then choose our building materials, then plan and think about our design. Our bridge had to span a minimum gap of 20cm and hold a minimum of 200g. We were all relieved that they all held at least 200g with one managing to hold over 4kg.
What a great start to Primary 6 and first term, I hope you all have well earned rest. Looking forward to lots more fun and learning in term 2!