Dear parents and carers, 

The children have had a very exciting time in school this week with all the STEM related activities going on. 

We started by conducting some science experiments based on some well known fairy tales. The children explored the possibility of the wolf being able to blow down The Three Little Pigs houses. The children set up tracks and then measured how far they could blow both Maltesers and marbles using a straw. From this, they concluded that it was very unlikely the Wolf would be able to blow a house down. 

We then investigated what would have happened to the Gingerbread Man if he had attempted to swim across the river and whether an alternative liquid to water would have given him a better chance. The children placed Gingerbread men into cups containing water, vinegar, oil and milk and then timed how long it took for them to fall apart. We realised that a river of oil would have given him a fighting chance, but water and especially vinegar would have caused him problems.

We then turned our attention to DT where we explored the merits of different types of bridges and how they are built. The children then designed and built their own bridges for the Three Billy Goats Gruff, as an alternative route to escape the troll. We tested their strength by stacking blocks on top of them. There were some very impressive bridges built and some very questionable counting of blocks. 

On Thursday, we learnt about computing algorithms. The children were tasked with building Jack a brick stalk out of Lego so he could get back up to the Giant's castle to get food for the hungry golden egg-laying hen. We then deconstructed our stalks, taking photos as we went. We then put them back into order using an iPad app called Freeform to create instructions for Jack to follow. The children then tested their creations, swapping their materials with other groups so they could test the quality of each other's instructions. 

Finally, on Friday, we drew STEM week to a close with some maths investigations…. We started by looking at the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Snow White had noticed that each day the Dwarfs arrived home from the mine in a different order. Using cubes we explored how many patterns we could make without repeats, we increased from 2 cubes gradually to 5 to discover how many ways the Dwarfs could arrive home before repeating a pattern.  

We then looked at the story of The Three Little Pigs once more but from the perspective of the pigs. Using cubes we designed pig palaces, however, no pig palace could look the same, which included rotating and flipping. We discovered that there were only 12 combinations that could be made.  

The children had a fantastic week and approached each investigation and challenge with enthusiasm!