We had lots of fun and interesting discussions completing our STEM challenge yesterday. The highest tower made from spaghetti and marshmallows was 75cm. The best part – eating the marshmallows! Below are some activities for you to complete today:
English
Learning Objective/Focus: Study perfect form of past tense and identify different forms. Re-read poem.
Main input:
If possible, watch whichever version of the poem you didn’t use yesterday: the PowerPoint or the video animation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ryu1JZiSbHo
Which of these do you think makes the poem clearest? Why?
Activities:
Revise the Perfect Form Use the Revision Card or the Perfect Form PowerPoint to remind yourself about the past perfect and present perfect form of verbs.
Complete Perfect Verb Forms A and C. You could challenge yourself to complete Perfect Verb Forms B as well!
Can you make some illustrations from the story of the Highwayman?
Can you find out about the historical character Dick Turpin? What are the five most interesting facts that you can discover about him?
Maths
Learning Objective/Focus: One-step equations. .
Main input: See PowerPoint.
Activities:
Fluency activity.
Reasoning activity.
Problem Solving activity.
Hannah is 8 years old. Jack is 13 years old. Grandma is 𝑥 + 12 years old. The sum of their ages is 100. Form and solve an equation to work out how old Grandma is.
D&T/Science
Learning Objective/Focus: STEM activities: Understand the forces used in bridge building.
Main input: Challenge children to build a bridge 50cm wide to support the weight of a food tin. Can they do this using only drinking straws, tape and string? Get them to investigate different shapes to see which are better at supporting a tin. They can use what they have found out to design and create their bridges and test them out.
Activities:
Build a bridge 50cm wide (span) to support the weight of a food tin in the middle of the bridge. Think about some bridge designs that will give you a good-engineered result and draw these. Some shapes are better at absorbing load – for example, triangles are particularly strong – so you might like to think about using them as part of your design. Also think about bunching straws together for added strength and make good use of the string, tape and elastic bands.
Why are some shapes stronger than others? How important are the materials used in building bridges?
How could you use geometry to help you to work out the angles and lengths in any triangle?
What can you find out about the mathematical bridge at Queens College, Cambridge
Hope you have a good day and enjoy the STEM activity, send in photographs of your bridges so we can share them with everyone.