How can we look after the world?

Monday morning came around and it was time to go into school to teach. The continents were all prepared, crumble kits all packaged and masses of recycled materials in black bin bags.

It was a little rushed of a morning as by the time we were collected from reception the children were already in the classroom!!!  This did slightly panic me as I did not feel fully prepared.

Being introduced to the teachers was a mixed reaction as it was clear that we felt an inconvenience in one class specifically, however in the other class we felt welcomed and involved.

Whilst Hollie set up the power point, I asked the children to reflect on the home work they completed for this session. This was also helpful and the children who did not do it, were able to discuss what their ‘neighbour’ found out.

The presentation was set up… and the session started. The children were able to tell us lots of countries around the world that produced a LARGE amount of waste, litter, water and energy. Some of these we found to be suprising!

We then were told that we could use the ICT suite at any point of the day as this was booked out for us. When we did enter the ICT, however, this was not the case! After sorting this ‘hiccup’ we introduced the children to the crumble kits. They loved them!!

Most children were familiar with SCRATCH, so programming was second nature to them. They also knew that in computing the number line starts at 0. Previously, I thought this would have been a difficult concept for the children to grasp, as I found this difficult.

Working in threes: Most children did this with ease, sharing roles between them and getting excited by the ‘Sparkle’ showing a number of lights. However some children found it difficult to work in group…this was clear by their arguments travelling across the classroom. The instructions to using Crumble was introduced to the children by Jaime, step by step from connecting the wires to attaching this to the computer.

The D & T part of the day the children really enjoyed and were excited by! They each took on roles to create each of the pieces. We found that one class found allocating roles easier, and produced overall more effective work.  This part of the session I introduced the task with clear and precise Health and Safety instructions. For example using scissors safely, especially as these were specialised fabric scissiors with a sharp point, not running around the classroom, taking care when using the needles around their pears.  I spent time on this topic as I believe it to be really important for the children to be aware of.

It was interesting to see the children shine as individuals. The children were able to show their sewing skills, the use of scissors (fine motor skills) and team work skills. We also collated this information in the form of Self-Evaluation sheets. However, one class filled these sheets in incorrectly and reviewed us as teachers instead of their own work. 

Improvements:

Allowing more time in the morning to set up equipment prior to the children arriving in the classroom.

Clearer instructions on how to fill in the self-evaluation forms

Taking more photographs of the children’s work for evidence.

 

 

 

This is where the D&T element came in. Firstly, we knew we wanted children to explore the idea of ‘how to help the world’ and the topic of Textiles.  

FIRST IDEA: transferring a whole world diagram onto a piece of either A2 or A3 cotton.  We were unsure of sizing, given that the larger the piece of fabric, the more resources we would have to use (contrary to our design brief) , however the A3 sized piece, would possibly be too small of a surface for each group to decorate the world map design.

FINAL IDEA: After plenty of discussions and advice from our lecturers, the two of us decide to divide the world map into it’s continents (russia seperate), and transfer those onto individual pieces of A3 cotton. This would then create a large display of the world, contributed to by both classes – to be shown in the school.

THE PROCESS OF MAKING: the difficulty and positives I faced when transferring the diagrams of the continents onto the cotton.

Using microsoft word, I enlarged and cropped each continent onto a A3 sized document (more time consuming than you can imagine!) I then procceded to halve each continent (as accurately as I could), copy this onto another document (A4 this time), to print onto transfer paper.This was a long process, as there was not A3 transfer paper available.

This was time consuming and needed to be precise in order to match on the larger piece of fabric. I repeated this for each continent, and then to the bubble writing letters. 

The images below show the process of ironing on the transfer paper, enlarging and cropping the ‘bubble letters’ for one of the groups and then the final result of the A3 continents. 

NEXT BLOG POST: final resources for school and school experience!!

At the start of this module we were introduced to the software called ‘crumble’. I have had previous experience with programming and electronics…not together though! This idea was daunting to me. My thoughts were as follows.

Step one: Explore the kit!  I could identify all of the components (such a relief!!!)… now let’s understand how to connect the components together.

Step two: Connecting the board to the LED and battery… this is part I found the most difficult…so I avoided this for now and explored the software on the computer. The fact it looked like scratch was quite a relief as that was something I was familiar with.  I started to explore what each of the functions did.Understanding that I needed to put the ‘program start’ to allow the instructions to work.

Step three: By discussing this stage with the people around me, I was able to then connect the wires to the battery and the circuit board, to then the LED (as seen in the image below).

Step four: Programme the information and input this into the circuit.  REMEMBER FOR NEXT TIME: If there is only one LED in the circuit, it is ‘Sparkle 0’ not 1. AND BRAID THE WIRES…  THE FINAL RESULT…