Five for Friday

Happy Friday Everyone!

That's one more week down and just 6 1/2 to go now!

We made our thaumatropes as the first lesson in our unit of work on animation. Annoyingly, I left the example I made to show them at home so I had to make a very rough example to show them at the last minute! Some of my class were very slapdash about making theirs and didn't take a lot of care over the drawing or cutting out (despite many reminders and lots of encouragement) which was a shame but others really tried hard (focus on the positives!).

My first 4 Five for Friday items are what we created:

We started with a ready drawn example so I could make sure they understood the basics about how to construct thaumatropes - I found a great PDF on Victorian toys and games which had Eric!
He smiles and waves when spun!

Once we had all had a go at making him, I let them design their own. I encouraged them to link it to our travel and transport unit but let them choose something different if they wanted to. We had a tooth fairy appearing by a child's bed, passengers in cars, a boy on a bike, bee in a tree and here are a few of my favourites:

This one looked amazing and I thought it was such a great idea!

A boxer throwing a punch!

This girl worked so hard on her flower - she really took pride in what she was doing!

A butterfly on a flower

Another sweet idea. I loved how creative so many of them were!

A girl jumping up and down

I sent them home with their creations and got lots more back at school the next day which they had made that night!

Next week we'll be making flick books! Any tips?

My number 5 is something different - we had Bumble the Clown in from Bubbly Maths to do some workshops with each year group on Tuesday and Wednesday. The kids were really excited and enjoyed learning about different shapes (I have to say, I was so pleased with how much they already knew!).

How many teachers can you fit into a cube?

The best thing about Bumble the Maths Clown was how he continually praised all the mistakes the children made when they were suggesting things - each time he said:

 'THAT is a BRILLIANT mistake and we have all LEARNED from it!' 

Lots of the kids were saying that back in the classroom and it really got the point across that it's ok to have a go and not get something right. Of course, we say that to them all the time, but hearing it from a clown is obviously more memorable and exciting!

That's all for this week. 

Have a great weekend!