13 - 18 February 2021 Rainforests and spies

- February 20, 2021

This week we had a bit of a theme of rainforests as we visited the Chester Zoo website every day. They put up rainforest activities, and secret messages to decipher.

There was a different rainforest each day. We watched a video about rainforests and thought about what we would need to pack to take with us. There was a secret cipher to use to work out secret messages that we found every day. We played with a rainforest sounds generator. We learned about poison dart frogs and coloured some in to make our own bright warning patterns and colours. We found out about the different layers of the rainforest and about palm oil production. We did a word search and read about each of the words in a glossary and chatted about them together. We learned about camera traps, chimpanzee facial expressions, evolution, the endemic species of Madagascar and deforestation. We also had a look around Chester Zoo on their virtual map and saw some of the animals they have there and how they take care of them.

Vin continued with his 2 minutes writing each day.

We had another theme that matched the rainforest code-breaking a bit - spies! Maddie and Greg on Youtube "Let's go Live" did a spy theme week. On the first day we had to solve the mystery of the cookie theft! We had to rule out suspects based on different crime scene investigation skills. We had a go at our own chromatography. It was such a surprise to see that our black felt tip pen was actually made of purple, green, blue and red ink. Vin then made up his own crime of the missing cupcakes with clues and deductions and some handwriting comparisons to find the culprit.

The second episode was a bit like an escape room - we had to rescue Dave the Teddy. We used Caeser shift ciphers, codes and clues to figure out the puzzles. The third episode was about being a secret agent. We made up our own secret agent names, learned about ways to send secret messages and messages visible in UV light. We learned how to make a magnifying glass with a bit of curved plastic and some water. It was a lot of fun!

We read more of our Elizabethan facts magazine from the Mysteries in Time box. We talked about how there may be different versions of a historical event based on who is telling it - for example Sir Francis Drake was a hero to the English as he helped defend against the Spanish, however the Spanish see him as a pirate as Queen Elizabeth encouraged him to rob treasure from the Spanish ships (that they had stolen from the Americas!). We did some of the puzzles from the back and Vin remembered loads of information for the quiz.

On a couple of days Vin played some more on Prodigy maths. It was good to be asked maths questions in different ways than what he is familiar with so it makes him think about what is being asked as well as how to work out the answer. He answered questions about time, measuring, missing numbers in sums, shapes and some questions using number lines.

Vin made up a game using the tongs and beads. We sorted the beads into the different colours and styles.

In Lego News...this week Vin asked to print off a picture of the Joker's Manor from Lego Batman so he could make his own version. he had a roller coaster round the outside, built the big "ha ha" sign, had a slide and secret rooms.

He also made a haunted mansion for Boo. There was a grave and a dry bones in the garden, all sorts of trap doors and moving platforms, and a floating chair and mug.