Solar System

In music we got the last 2 Greek tunes recorded. Mrs MacNab is hoping to put the tunes onto the blog at some point for parents to hear them.

In PE we are still inventing games. Every week Mrs MacNab adds in a new challenge - this week it was a team game again, but it had to be something to do with space.

P3 made a game with 'planets' as targets. Mrs MacNab was very pleased that they remembered which planets were big and small and used big hoops for the big planets and small hoops for the small planets. They did very well with changing the rules so more people could play and had lots of good ideas for making the game easier or more difficult.

P4's game had spacemen in their space rockets (space hoppers) and aliens throwing asteroids (soft balls) at them to capture the space rockets.

At the end everyone played both games and enjoyed them.

In maths some people are doing dividing. They used cubes to help them and they have been sharing things out and making groups.

In topic time we learned about the different layers which make up the Earth. We all made models to help us remember. The layers are inner core, outer core, mantle, crust and atmosphere.

Do you know what each layer is made of?

We did another science experiment. This time we were finding out about gravity.

First we talked about what we thought gravity was.

We had to make sure the experiement was fair, so we had to drop things from the same height at the same time.

We listened to them hitting the tray to see if they landed at the same time.

We found out that gravity pulls things at the same speed even if they are big or small or heavy or light. But very light things like feathers drift around and don't fall straight down. That is because of air resistance.

Mrs MacNab asked what would happen if we did the same experiment on the moon using a hammer and a feather. We had lots of ideas. Most people thought maybe the feather would drift down but the hammer might go up because we didn't think there was any gravity on the moon.

Then we watched a video of men doing that experiment on the moon.

We were very surprised that the feather and the hammer hit the ground together!

Mrs MacNab explained to us why that had happened.

We thought it would be good to go to the moon to do experiements.

On Friday we thought about what we could do to raise money to help the children in Haiti.

You can find out more on the Pupil Council blog here.

In Golden Time some people were making winter pictures.

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

This week we took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch. We counted the birds in the playground and then looked at different ways of displaying the information in charts.

You can read more about it on the Green Swans blog here.

Another challenge

We had another challenge this week. We used the lolly sticks to decide who was in each group, then each group were given 2 planets (or the sun). We had to make a fact file for each of our planets and also make a collage planet.

We all had different jobs in the group. We thought that made it easier to work together. The jobs are facilitator, materials manager, time keeper, quality control and recorder.

Here we are using the computers to look up information about the planets. We used books as well.

First we had to look up what colour our planets were so we could paint the background.

After the paint was dry we used other things like foil, material and paper to add features to the planets.

We had to work together.

We found it a little easier to work well as a team this time. At the end we thought of things we had done well and things we thought we could improve.

Magic potions, science experiments and more.

We learned a new game in Drama. It was like rock, paper, scissors but we had to pretend to be people from Greek myths and do actions. Can you guess who we are?

We used the myth masks again. We asked the minotaur if he liked pizza.

Mesuda said she liked her red eyes but if she wanted a different colour she could paint them a different colour each day. We thought that sounded cool.

Zeus and Daedalus were asked lots of questions about their favourite food and what they liked doing. Everyone was good at pretending to be the different characters and improvising (quickly making up) answers.

We did a science experiment. We had to get water, containers, apples and marbles. We used maths to help us because we had to measure water and weigh things.

We found that when an apple floated in the water it made water spill out of the container - and the water that spilled out weighed the same as the apple.

Some groups tried the same experiment with marbles in a yoghurt pot and found that the weight of the marbles in the yoghurt pot floating on the water was the same as the weight of the water which spilled out.

We were quite surprised to find that 1/2 kg of water was the same as 1/2 litre of water and 1kg of water was the same as 1l of water!

We did another experiement with marbles as well and then we had to write a report about it.

We were interested to find out that the first experiment is to do with our Ancient Greece topic from last term because a man called Archimedes worked this out years ago. He was Greek and he had to find out if the King's crown was really gold. He got into his bath and water spilled out and he realised he could do an experiement like the one we did to find out whether the crown was gold. He was so excited that he jumped out of his bath and ran down the street shouting "Eureka! Eureka!" (it means "I've got it! I've got it!"). The funny thing was - he didn't put on any clothes before he ran down the street! We wondered what all the other people thought of him?

In maths we are still practising our times tables. Sometimes we do a table square and try to beat our time from the week before.

P3 had more practice at measuring capacity and used it to solve problems.

P4 made their own magic potions. They had to measure small amounts like 50ml very carefully.

Here we are with the finished magic potions.

What do you think the magic potions can do?

In PE with Mrs MacNab we are making up our own games and learning to change the rules so that other people can join in or to make the game easier or more difficult. We enjoy it!

P3 are teaching P4 their game here.

In PE with Mrs Cromarty we are still doing gymnastics. We love it too!

How high can you climb?

Here we are doing craft in Golden Time. We were making recycled winter pictures - using things like old wallpaper and pieces of string. We thought that was very environmentally friendly.

Blue Peter t-shirts

Some of the class have been decorating t-shirts for the Blue Peter 'Send a Smile' appeal. You can find out more on the Pupil Council blog here.

Lots of the girls decided that decorating the t-shirts would be a good way to spend Golden Time this week. They worked very hard and did some lovely designs.

They had to think quite hard first about what to put on the t-shirt. It had to be quite a simple design so it was easy to draw with fabric paints. They also thought hard about pictures which would make ill children who were wearing the gowns feel happy.

First they drew their designs in chalk, then used fabric paints to go over the design.

The boys were playing chess. They worked hard too.

At the end the boys thought the girls had done very good work. Mrs MacNab and Mrs Rendall though so too.

Do these designs make you feel happy?