We began the week meeting up again with Archimedes who we discovered was quite the bright spark! He loved circles and spheres and best of all he liked to measure anything he could about them.
So! We took a few leaves out of Archimedes books and wondered how we would measure round our heads and we were to call this the circumference just like Archimedes had done. The children suggested using a ruler but it wasn’t bending so we used to string to measure round our heads and then the ruler to work out how many centimetres. We had no shortage of volunteers and the children enjoyed seeing who had the biggest head and how the circumferences of our heads all compared to one another; interestingly enough there was only a few centimetres between the biggest child’s head and the adult heads. Hmmm... interesting! We speculated that this was because we are born with such large brains and would you believe it?! – clearly inspired by the genius of Archimedes, we looked it up and we were right; By 2 years of age the child’s brain is nearly 2/3rds of the size of the adult brain. This aptly brings us to fractions – another one of Archimedes' loves and of course Pi (but that would be confusing!).
We played around with fractions and named them, and also filled the cup up to a quarter, a third, a half and then full. We also added the stones to the water and measured in fractions how much the water was displaced. So much fun!!
And at the end of the week we had a real treat. On the eve of St Patrick’s Day we were joined in circle by a couple of Irish Dancers. They did some reels, danced with the children and then merrily jigged an exit! Some of the children tried on the very bedazzling orange dress too. The conclusion from one boy was that it was ‘too heavy and itchy’ to wear all the time!
So! We took a few leaves out of Archimedes books and wondered how we would measure round our heads and we were to call this the circumference just like Archimedes had done. The children suggested using a ruler but it wasn’t bending so we used to string to measure round our heads and then the ruler to work out how many centimetres. We had no shortage of volunteers and the children enjoyed seeing who had the biggest head and how the circumferences of our heads all compared to one another; interestingly enough there was only a few centimetres between the biggest child’s head and the adult heads. Hmmm... interesting! We speculated that this was because we are born with such large brains and would you believe it?! – clearly inspired by the genius of Archimedes, we looked it up and we were right; By 2 years of age the child’s brain is nearly 2/3rds of the size of the adult brain. This aptly brings us to fractions – another one of Archimedes' loves and of course Pi (but that would be confusing!).
We played around with fractions and named them, and also filled the cup up to a quarter, a third, a half and then full. We also added the stones to the water and measured in fractions how much the water was displaced. So much fun!!
And at the end of the week we had a real treat. On the eve of St Patrick’s Day we were joined in circle by a couple of Irish Dancers. They did some reels, danced with the children and then merrily jigged an exit! Some of the children tried on the very bedazzling orange dress too. The conclusion from one boy was that it was ‘too heavy and itchy’ to wear all the time!
