Category: Technology

Technology

Drake Music

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Abi Sinar, a musician with Drake Music, has been working with students at Orchard Brae for the last two years, even throughout lockdowns, in developing the North East Digital Orchestra project. The ultimate goal of the project is to create a digital orchestra for school leavers and young adults, enabling them to develop their musical skills and create new music using a range of inclusive music technologies.

Pupils who have been involved in the project have been supported by Abi to develop their musical skills using a variety of accessible instruments and have created this video for you to enjoy, where they play Ode To Joy as well as their own additional compositions to the song.

Many thanks to Abi for her support and in making the film. If you would like to find out more about Drake Music and their work, please follow the link below:

https://drakemusicscotland.org/

Science Week

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Room 16 enjoyed celebrating Science Week last week by doing their own sensory experiment. We made our own lava lamps by adding Vitamin C tablets to oil and coloured water. We enjoyed the smell of the orange from the vitamin C, the sound of the fizzing and the sight of the bubbles coming through the layer of oil. It also gave us all the opportunity to practise our motor skills with pouring the water and oil. We shone lights underneath our lamps and put the lights out – they looked awesome!

Switch fun in Room 17

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Room 17 have been developing our skills of switch work through exploring different ways to use our switch button. We have been using our switch to play music on the white board, to activate toys and lights, to engage in sensory stories and even to make popcorn and to carve our pumpkin at Halloween! The switch has lots of uses which allows us to interact with our environment as independently as possible. We have great fun using them at the same time!

Room 8’s Rocket Bat

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There’s an old saying: what goes up must come down. This activity is a perfect chance to challenge that idea, shooting a rocket high into the air by rapidly squashing a plastic bottle launcher. We’ll never get this rocket into space, but some real rockets do go fast enough to prove the saying wrong.

What’s the science?

The bottle we used as the rocket launcher is not really empty: there is air inside it. Air is elastic (squashy), and when we compressed it, it pushed back and the pressure inside increased. In the activity, the sudden increase in air pressure inside the bottle pushed hard on the bottom of the rocket, sending it flying high into the air.

We challenge you to make your very own rocket mouse and launcher – see how high your bat can fly!

We needed:

  • An empty plastic milk bottle (4- or 6-pint bottles work best)
  • Things to decorate your rocket
  • Scissors
  • Glue
  • A rocket bat template

We followed these steps:

  • Cut out a template along the dotted lines.
  • Rolled it into a cone shape and secured it with tape – this was our rocket.
  • Decorated our rocket adding some bat wings
  • Popped it on top of our bottle.
  • Hit the sides and launched our rocket into the air!

Science in our world

Just as increasing the air pressure in the bottle sends the rocket flying, we use air pressure when we squeeze shampoo or ketchup from a plastic bottle.

Marble Runs In Room 8

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Marble runs are great for open-ended building. They’re an example of using Science, Technology, and Math. And, they’re a lot of fun, both for the kids and the adults.

The boys and girls in Room 8 discovered so many benefits of building their two marble runs.

Everyone in Room 8 sloped, bent, twisted, turned to make building a marble run challenging, but it was fun.  So, engineering or building something is one of the benefits.

So many questions as ‘Will it work if I ….?’ The benefits are problem solving and trial and error.

Everyone from the box and the other people building the marble run. Next benefit – following directions.

It took a LONG time to build a big marble run. It can also take time to make something new work or figure out how to successfully connect different pieces. There’s not a lot of instant gratification with a marble run. So, the patience was the key.

Building a marble run wasn’t easy. But, sticking with the process and not giving up helped build patience and perseverance.

Marble runs are open-ended activities. There are lots of ways to build and construct marble runs, so the possibilities are endless. Being creative, wewere building two marble runs.

We needed everyone participating while building our successful marble run. So, we have been cooperative.

Weincorporated a lot of Math naturally when we were building our marble run. For example, counting how many pieces are needed to complete the marble run. Predicting which one will be fastest or estimating how long it will take to complete the marble run.

Precision and care were needed when we were connecting pieces of a marble run. So, building a marble run helped us to develop our hand-eye coordination.

All the colours, shapes, and different types of pieces, combined with constructing a marble run that’s long, tall, superfast, had many starting points, gave plenty of opportunities for children to use their imagination.

Primary Department Activities – Week Beginning 22nd June

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Our Google Classrooms have gone live!  Your child’s teacher will be using Google Classroom to share activities with you but we are aware that some families are waiting on technology and other supports to enable them to access Google Classroom so we will still be posting a selection of activities here too.  If you haven’t logged in yet or having difficulty accessing Google Classroom please contact your child’s teacher who will be able to offer you support and advice.  Here is a short video to show you some of the exciting things happening on Google Classroom.

If you would like to share how you have got on with our activities, please share any photos via your child’s teacher, through Google Classroom, the Orchard Brae School Facebook Messenger page or email Amy Dunnett (Principal Teacher Primary) adunnett@aberdeencity.gov.uk.  Downloading videos from the Orchard Brae School Facebook Messenger page appears to be working again (fingers crossed!) however if you are having any issues, please send them using a free transfer site such as Dropbox or WeTransfer.

Virtual Sports Day:

This week we are holding our first ever Virtual Sports Day and we would like to thank our PE teachers, Amanda and Salvi for organising this.  Our Virtual Sports Day will start on Monday 22nd June and we would love for as many of our pupils, families and staff as possible to join in.

There will be 8 challenges for you to try at home and you will have the whole week to complete as many challenges as you can. Each challenge will have a short video clip which will include a demonstration of the task and suggested equipment to use. Challenges can be copied, adapted or you can even devise your own.

If you would like to participate, please check your child’s ab-ed.org email where you will find an invitation to join and access the Virtual Sports Day Google Classroom.

Story Of The Week: The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

This week’s story is a wonderful shimmering underwater adventure – The Rainbow Fish.  Troughout this story, the Rainbow Fish gradually realises the importance of friendship and sharing!

Using the link below you can watch and listen to the story:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifXlc0QI2kY

The book study below has some great activities for you to try at home based on the story.

Links and additional documents to support the activities can be found below:

Activity 1: Fish Outlines

Activity 3: Aquarium Sensory Bag

Activity 5: Fishy Biscuit Recipe

This recipe can also be found at https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/easiest-ever-biscuits

Other Activity Ideas:

Be Resilient!

Education Scotland, in conjunction with Aberdeen City Council, produced a Resilience Alphabet full of fun think, say, do activities designed to promote resilience and develop coping strategies.  There are a series of activities for each letter of the alphabet, so pick a letter and give it a go!

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/scotland-learns/health-and-wellbeing-activities/resilience-alphabet/

Learning Grid: Life Skills

Here is a learning grid for Life Skills.  It contains 16 activity ideas for you to help develop and promote your child’s independence in a range of household and life skills tasks.

These activities are only suggestions and we would recommend that, where appropriate, you adapt these activities to meet your child’s ability level.

Primary Department Activities – Week Beginning 15th June

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Today’s the day … our Google Classrooms have gone live!  Your child’s teacher will be using Google Classroom to share activities with you but we are aware that some families are waiting on technology and other supports to enable them to access Google Classroom so we will still be posting a selection of activities here too.

If you would like to share how you have got on with our activities, please email any photos via your child’s teacher, through Google Classroom, the Orchard Brae School Facebook Messenger page or email Amy Dunnett (Principal Teacher Primary) adunnett@aberdeencity.gov.uk.  Downloading videos from the Orchard Brae School Facebook Messenger page appears to be working again (fingers crossed!) however if you are having any issues, please send them using a free transfer site such as Dropbox or WeTransfer.

Story Of The Week: ‘The Lighthouse Keeper’s Lunch’ By Ronda and David Armitage

Click below to watch and listen to the story on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46wCRq50Wwg 

The book study below has some activities for you to try at home based on the story.

Links and additional documents to support the activities can be found below.

Activity 1: Template For Lighthouse

Other Activities: Story Word Mat

Dimensional Lighthouse Model

Be Resilient!

Education Scotland, in conjunction with Aberdeen City Council, produced a Resilience Alphabet full of fun think, say, do activities designed to promote resilience and develop coping strategies.  There are a series of activities for each letter of the alphabet, so pick a letter and give it a go!

https://education.gov.scot/improvement/scotland-learns/health-and-wellbeing-activities/resilience-alphabet/

Learning Grid: Life Skills

Here is a learning grid for Life Skills.  It contains 16 activity ideas for you to help develop and promote your child’s independence in a range of household and life skills tasks.

These activities are only suggestions and we would recommend that, where appropriate, you adapt these activities to meet your child’s ability level.

Learning Grid: Get Active!

Here is a learning grid for Getting Active!  It contains 16 activity ideas for you to help promote physical activity both in and out of the home on a daily basis.

These activity are only suggestions and we would recommend completing one activity each day.  However, we would love to see what other creative ways you and your family are using to Get Active daily!

Links to YouTube Channels and websites can be found below.

Oti Mabuse Official YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/mosetsanagape

Joe Wicks – Body Coach YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/thebodycoach1

Cosmic Kids Yoga: https://www.cosmickids.com/

Cosmic Kids Yoga YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/CosmicKidsYoga

Learning Station YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/TheLearningStation

Bumble Bee Physio: https://www.facebook.com/bumblebeephysio/

imoves.com also have lots of fun exercise activities for you to try at home.  Here are some of the challenges and the links to access them:

Mountain Bike Challenge: https://imoves.com/home-learning/723

Exercise And Health: https://imoves.com/home-learning/1272

Wellness Warrior – Fruit And Veg Dance: https://imoves.com/home-learning/1332

Positions And Directions: https://imoves.com/home-learning/1334

Samba Carnival: https://imoves.com/home-learning/1340

Disco: https://imoves.com/home-learning/1346

Balance Challenge: https://imoves.com/home-learning/964

Strong Core: https://imoves.com/home-learning/1393