One rockpooling afternoon: one sheet for the whole family

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One afternoon
An afternoon at the rock pools Name   Date
One afternoon, five different things to think about. Do them in any order. Draw, write, measure or tell somebody, whatever suits the question and suits you.
ScienceWhat did you find, and what goes with what?

Sort your finds into groups. Name each group yourself. Two good groups beat four muddled ones.

1
2
3
4
Then say whyThey all go together because…  ·  Every one of them has…  ·  None of them…

Find one more creature. Which group does it go in? If it does not fit, your rule needs one more question in it.

MathsHow many, how big, how far?

Count them, measure them, or compare them. Whichever you can do.

WhatHow manyHow big, or how far
Compare two of themThe biggest was…  ·  There were more… than…  ·  It moved … in … minutes
EnglishTell the afternoon back.

What happened, in the order it happened. Say it out loud first if that helps. Somebody can write it for you.

Words that hold it in orderFirst…  ·  Then…  ·  After that…  ·  In the end…
GeographyWhy is this place like this?

Draw the pool, or the beach, or the cliff. Label what you can. Then have a go at why.

draw here
Have a go at whyThe pools are there because…  ·  When the tide goes out…  ·  The rock is that shape because…
Going furtherPick one creature. Why does it suit this pool?

That shell, that claw, that colour. Why is it any use here? Use what you actually saw, not what you already knew.

One afternoon, five threads. That is the promise on the front of SEQUENS and this is what it looks like on paper. A sheet that only did the sorting would have thrown away the maths, the writing and the geography that were all standing in the same rock pool.

Every child does every section. There is no age on this sheet and no version of it. A five year old draws three shells, counts them, and tells you the pools fill up when the sea comes back. A twelve year old measures how far the tide moved in an hour, writes the recount with reasoning in it, and argues the adaptation. Same five questions. Their own answer to each.

Every question is open at both ends. "How many, how big, how far" works if you can count to five and it works if you can calculate a rate. That is what lets one sheet serve a whole family without labelling anybody.

And the coverage is honest. The geography is marked as enrichment rather than a set objective, because it is, and it stays marked that way however good the afternoon was.

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