New Term, New Topic (more pics to follow)

Happy New Year! Well, after an eventful Christmas and New Year, it's been full steam ahead this term. Our new topic is all about Holidays. Yes, I know that this is a common Foundation Stage and KS1 topic, but I've amped it up to KS2! There is so much learning to be done!! The children are loving this topic already. Anyway, I should start at the beginning...

Holiday Hook

To hook them into the topic, I allowed each team of 4 to come up with a 'tour group', who could be travelling together. We had pensioners, 2 couples, a single mum with 3 children, a family with 2 adults and 2 children, a swimming team on a social holiday and a group of university students. They thought of likes, dislikes, considerations (such as disabilities or allergies) and group dynamics. I then took them and redistributed them to different groups, along with a suitable budget and 2 holiday destination options. 
Opening their envelopes was the funniest experience! The 'swimming team' squealed with excitement, the 'pensioners' groaned and laughed and the single mother declared that 'they'd better have a kids club because she's stuck on her own with them all year - this is her break', meanwhile a 'teenage daughter' was sulking about not being able to charge her iPhone in a tent! Talk about getting into character!!

In Maths, we decided to try to figure out how Trip Advisor rank attractions after realising that the top attraction often had a lower rating than those further down. I took screen shots of some of the top attractions in our local area (Manchester), and we had a look at the bars and numbers to check what each represented. After a quick recap of finding percentages using a calculator, the children explored possibilities. Some tried finding the percentage of 'excellent' reviews, some wondered if it was based on the percentage at 'average' or above (thus moving themselves on to a 2-step problem, having to total the categories they were including). 

Okay, I know that this is nothing new, but we had a lot of fun measuring distances with maps, scales and pieces of string! We then extended this a bit to calculating how long a journey would take at a given speed. The maps we used were just simple Google maps of Greater Manchester, allowing us to find the distances between our school and local attractions. Later in the week, we converted these from metric to imperial, because let's be honest - who measures distances in kilometres?! 

Check back next week for details about the walking tour we are designing for our parents and the fantastic speaking and listening that has come out of it! Sorry for the short post but, as you can see, we've been very busy! More to come soon, promise!