Nursery and Reception have been observing the signs that winter is on its way! After noticing the frost last week, we decided to make some of our own ice decorations using natural materials. We collected leaves, conkers and twigs to create them and then hung them on our apple tree to watch what happened as they began to melt. The results were beautiful!
This week in Class 2 we started our new Science Topic: Animals including Humans. We worked in teams to find clues that Miss Robinson had hidden in the playground. Then we figured out that we were naming parts of the body! We came back into the classroom and worked co-operatively to draw a human and label lots of parts of the body, using the clues we had found outside to help us.
In Science, Class 3 are learning all about light. This week we explored mirror images and how changing the shape of a mirror changes the image in very funny ways! We experimented with mirror writing too and finding ways to send messages to a friend.
You might be surprised to discover just how many mirrors (or surfaces that act like mirrors and reflect your image) that you have in your house. You may well have more than 30 especially if you include those in a car too!
Skiddaw class have been learning all about rocks in Science recently. There is nothing better than chocolate to show the ways of making different types of rocks! The Rock Cycle goes round and round and rocks are changed into other types over millions of years. We started with layers of grated milk and white chocolate to represent the sedimentary rocks like limestone and chalk. We pressed these little bits down just like the sea presses the layers down to make these rocks.
We then applied a bit of heat from our hands and twisted the chocolate sediment to form metamorphic rocks like marble and slate.
Then we put some of the chocolate into a cup of hot water and melted it and cooled it, like the igneous rocks that are formed underground and then erupted out of a volcano like granite and basalt. We know that rocks are weathered and eroded into little bits that flow into rivers and into the sea and the whole cycle starts again!
Of course, we stopped and ate our chocolate which tasted pretty good even though we had changed it to much!
Our science work on fair testing and materials over the last two weeks has been linked to the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears! Which spoon would be best for Father Bear to stir the hot porridge with so he didn’t burn his hand?
In the first week, Mrs Wadey demonstrated it all wrong and didn’t make it a fair test at all – she had different sized pots, different sized spoons and put the spoons in all at different times. We were challenged to do better!
We had to choose our equipment from a vast selection to carry out a fair test to see which spoon conducted heat the least and would keep Father Bear’s hand cool whilst he stirred and made the porridge for breakfast – wood, plastic or metal?
Many of Y3 and Y4 devised ways of recording their own results and others worked together to create a table. Most children found out, concluded, that metal would get warm quite quickly and so wouldn’t be a good choice for Father Bear. Our discussion about why metal spoons were OK for eating but NOT good for cooking were interesting too and included thinking about how long the spoon was in contact with the hot food! Great scientific thinking and recording on this by all.
Scafell enjoyed planting our seedlings in our new outdoor classroom this week!! We are looking forward to seeing them flower over the next few weeks.
Skiddaw class are learning all about materials in science. We watched a live BBC lesson all about the problems of plastics in our oceans. This inspired us to make posters to help others understand what they can do to help. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is a clear and easy way for everyone to make a difference.
Here are some of our designs.
Skiddaw class have been learning all about food digestion in all its glory. See us here, following the path our food takes through our bodies using biscuits, water, orange juice and tights! We’ve been learning all the scientific words like oesophagus and intestines and we are now experts in how our amazing bodies use the nutrients in our food to give us energy. Lots of great facial expressions here…
On Friday we braved the winds and showers to hunt for signs of Spring. We talked about how the world around us is beginning to change and that it will soon be Easter time. We turned into nature detectives and went for a bracing walk around our playing fields and school grounds and we were really surprised how many things we managed to spot when we looked really carefully.
As part of our Design Technology, Year 1 have planned, designed, built and then evaluated their own rockets! We thought about the parts of a rocket and what materials these could be made from. Our Science work on Everyday Materials helped us decide which materials we could use. We designed and labelled our rockets. We planned which materials and tools we needed, put this information into a table and then had great fun building them! The results were some fabulous, original rocket designs. Finally, we evaluated the process and any challenges we faced.