For anyone new to this blog, the idea is simple - each day my boys (Joshua - 9 and Archie - 8) choose a stimulus that drives the learning. We hope that you enjoy the blog and can take some inspiration from what we love doing - making learning as engaging as possible!
Frozen Worlds
If there is one benefit from the world going into lockdown, it has to be the reduction of CO2 across the world. The BBC reported, "No war, no recession, no previous pandemic has had such a dramatic impact on emissions of CO2 over the past century as Covid-19 has in a few short months."
Today's blog is all about understanding how our actions contribute to climate change, that in turn is seeing the frozen worlds begin to melt and sea levels continually rise as our planet continues to warm at an alarming rate.
English
Research and note taking
Facts vs opinions
Persuasive writing
Posters
We began by watching this short video on The National Geographic all about climate change:
This raised a lot of questions, such as what the Green House Effect is and why the world was warming up. We captured all of the key learning from the film and then dug a bit deeper to find out some answers. We also began to bank some emotive language. Here are our notes:
For me, the importance of today's session was to get the boys talking about these big issues. It is so easy for children to not see the role that they play climate change. Looking at the big issues and then bringing them down to a more personal level really helped them connect.
The boys then did a little independent research and reading:
After that, we began to identify all of the features that we would want to include in a persuasive poster, designed to raise awareness of the things we can do to help. Here is our boxed-up framework:
With lots of ideas to draw upon, the boys then jotted down their ideas in draft form:
Finally, they designed their posters (they were really proud of these):
If you are enjoying this blog, please do share it and spread the word. Thank you to all of you who have got in touch and shared some of the outcomes from what you have tried - we love to hear from you.
Do tune in tomorrow, where we exploring:
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My thanks to Pie Corbett, Julia Strong and the Talk for Writing team for inspiring many of the ideas explored in this blog.
This blog is copyright. All materials herein, texts and supporting resources are copyright to Jamie Thomas & Talk for Writing. They may be used to support children/staff/parents in home-learning ONLY and not for commercial gain or for training or sharing widely, in their original form or any variations. They must also not be shared online or on any social media platforms without prior permission.