Environment Week 2019- Wall-E

During Environment Week we decided to use Wall-E to help us learn about the sort of environment we would like to live in. We thought that Earth in the future was messy and dirty and not very nice. We also learnt how important  plants were.

We decided to plant some beans to add some more plants to our environment. There were some other seeds as well and we talked about which one would grow fastest if we put them in a race.

Look what happened to the bean only a week later!

We also talked about 3-D shape a lot during the week as Miss Parker set us a challenge to build our own Wall-E but only once we could talk about the shapes we needed to make him.

Doesn’t he look wonderful? He even has a flap on the front so he can open it and put the rubbish inside. You might be able to spot some kids from Garnet class there was well who came to help us.

We also worked with our friends from Nursery outside to create a giant Wall-E. He was bigger than we were!

Our parents and carers made lots of comments on our learning about Wall-E during Environment Week.

What have we been learning? 

• About what our environment is and what we would like it to look like. 
• About the importance of plants and why we need them in our environment.
• About 3-D shapes and how to describe them using the correct words- edge, vertices and faces. 

How you can continue the learning at home! 

• Collect some boxes and junk modelling- can you make a model of Wall-E or a different robot? 
• Look for 3-D shapes in your home and think about why it is a good shape for that job, for example, why don’t we have a sphere for a TV? 
• Tlak  ajot what you like in your home environment and what you don’t like. Make sure you keep it tidy like Wall-E did! 
• Look at the plants in your garden. Which plants do you have? Could you add any more! 

 

A Trip to the Building Site

You may have noticed they are building some houses near to our school. We got the opportunity to go and have a closer look and to meet some of the builders.

First there was a Workshop session with parents and carers in the Hall. Jordan from Engie came to talk to us and share some information about house building. There was then a special building activity to do with real mini bricks. We had to work together to make a tiny house.

Then we split up into 4 groups with Garnet class and went to see the Building Site. The builders came to meet us at school and brought special hard hats and high vis vests for us to wear just like the real builders. We walked around the edge of the site looking at the houses that were being built. There was lots of discussion about keeping safe near building sites and also why we had the special clothing on to help keep us safe when we visited.

We saw detached houses and semi- detached houses. We loved looking at the big diggers. We saw builders whose job was to put the bricks on the house and other builders who dug the big holes. We found out about the different colour hats that the builders were wearing and lots more.

Can you remember what you found out from the builders? Use these photos to help prompt your memory. 

We followed the visit with some learning about the story of the Three Little Pigs. It was a story the children were familiar with that they mentioned when we were talking about building in our Floor Book session. We even got a letter from the Three Pigs asking for our help to build a strong house after the disaster they had. We tried to build houses in lots of different ways.  We even tested them with the hairdryer pretending to be the Big Bad Wolf!

We have loved learning about houses and how they are built. A huge thank you to everyone at Engie who made it possible and also the parents and carers who came with us so we could take the children on the walks. We couldn’t have done it without you 🙂

What have we been learning? 

• About how to build houses. 
• About what is happening in our school community. 
• About the jobs that builders have to do everyday. 
• About keeping safe on and around building sites. 
• About the houses that we can build linked to a story that we know. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Comment on the building site when you are bringing your child or taking them home from school- what has changed? What are they building now? What do you think will happen next? 
• Talk about the job that builders do and other jobs which the children are interested in. 
• Reinforce comments about the children staying safe and why it is important. 

Environment Week 2017

Every year in school we have an Environment Week. 2017 was no different. In Onyx class we had a couple of visitors in our classroom. First Michael Recycle came to visit and then Litterbug Doug. Litterbug Doug left a total mess which we had to sort out. It turned out that he was just trying to trick us and teach us about recycling. We learnt how to sort out rubbish and make sure it all went in the correct bins.

We didn’t stop there. A couple of weeks ago Jayden had asked if we could make paper in Onyx class. We gave him a couple of books to see if he could find out to do it and in Environment Week we gave it a go. It took a couple of days to do everything but worked out really well. Can you remember how we made paper? 

We watched the film Wall-E to find out more about how to keep our planet safe and why it was so important. It made us think about plants and how important they were. We talked more about this when we went to tidy our allotment which was looking a mess.

We talked about the weeds as we dug them up and started to talk about the roots and the leaves. It surprised Miss Parker how few children knew about the different parts of the plants so look out soon for some learning on plants. The good news is we knew more about how to grow plants so hopefully the sunflowers which we planted will be growing really tall soon. Keep your fingers crossed! How tall do you think they’ll grow? 

We also had a go at making a model of Wall-E. What do you think?

We had to be able to talk about the shape of the recycled materials that we were using and the properties of the shapes. It was hard to get the round bottles to balance on the neck because they had round faces not flat. We solved the problems and made Wall-E stick. Can you see any other shapes- 2D or 3D- on Wall-E?

What have we been learning? 

• Why we need to take care of our environment. 
• What makes a nice environment. 
• What we can make from rubbish to make it even better. 
• To sort materials and recycle them. 
• That a film can teach us important things about the environment. 
• Why plants are so important to our planet. 
• To build robots like Wall-E using a variety of different materials. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Recycle materials at home using the blue bin and blue box. Ask your child to help you sort the rubbish. 
• Encourage children to turn the lights and other electrical equipment off as they leave rooms to save energy. Talk about why this is important. 
• Buy a plant and let your child look after it at home by watering it regularly.