Magic Beans

1

HwbHwb

Literacy Skills• Organising ideas and information for oracy, writing and reading.

• Writing accurately.

• Locating, selecting and using information.

• Responding to what has been read.

Numeracy Skills• Identify processes and connections.

• Represent and communicate.

• Review.

• Use number facts and relationships.

• Calculate using mental and written methods.

Hwb+ Tools• Blogs.

• Picture and Video libraries.

• Discussion Forum.

• Announcements.

• Office 365 Excel.

KS2Numeracy / Literacy

Length of Project:1 Term

HwbNational Digital Content Repository

Learning Objective• To use thinking skills, investigation and reasoning.

• Complete an ending to a story.

Success Criteria• Learners contributing to a discussion blog.

• Completing the online survey.

• Learners understanding that beans need the correct environment to grow.

Preparation before the project• Add an announcement to explain to the learners the task for the next few weeks.

• Create a wiki page with the beginning of the story of Jack and the beanstalk and illustratethe story.

• Add links to wiki pages for each learner in the class for them to create their own wiki pageand add their own ending to the story.

• Buy runner bean seeds.

• Have 5 different environments for growing the beans:

• Soil but no water.

• Soil and too much water.

• No soil and lots of water.

• Soil and water but no sunlight.

• Soil, water and sunlight.

• Set up a spreadsheet with labelled columns ready for the learners to collect the data.

• Time lapse video for videoing the growing beans (if available).

• Camera to photograph the beans at various stages of growth.

• Selection of measuring instruments such as cubes, string, rulers and measuring tapes.

Magic Beans

2HwbNational Digital Content Repository

3

Task• Read the beginning of the story of Jack and the Beanstalk.

• As a class record suggestions of how the story may end if they didn’t know the end of the story.

• Set up a class discussion for the learners to complete at home if possible.

• Discussion should be based around the story e.g. Should Jack have stolen the golden eggsand coins from the giant?

• Review their answers in class and have a debate about whether Jack is a thief.

• Use the class wiki for the learners to add their own ending to the story and to express theiropinions of the story through a link to their own wiki page from the main class page.

• Each learner plants a bean using soil, water and light.

• Measure the growth of their bean weekly and record results in a spreadsheet stored in ashared document area on Hwb+.

• Plant beans in different conditions as mentioned above.

• Compare the results of all beans.

• Create a graph of their growth and analyse how fast the beans are growing.

• Keep a blog about the growth of the beans, uploading any photographic evidence of growthor lack of growth to the blog.

• At end of the project create a graph from the spreadsheet of the beans growth and answer a questionnaire created through the surveys by the teacher.

Magic Beans

HwbNational Digital Content Repository

hwb.wales.gov.uk Date modified: April 2014

4

Plenary• Look at the wikis created by the learners and discuss the best ending to the story.

• Look at the blogs and share the blogs with other classes and parents.

• Ask the learners:

• Have they completed what they set out to achieve?

• How could they have improved their investigation?

• How valid were their findings?

• How could they extend their investigation?

• What have they learned?

Magic Beans

HwbNational Digital Content Repository