Living and learning – Identity
Our Living and Learning theme this half-term is Identity. Pupils will learn about what makes themselves and others special, valuing the similarities and differences between themselves and others and what is meant by community. This will be taught through our Living and Learning sessions and also a focused week – Anti-bullying week (12 November).
Also this half term, our new school charity will be chosen. Every year, we nominate a new charity to support. This year, we have been supporting MakeAWish. We decide this on the basis of a Talk Time homework, and then school councillors make the final decision.
Our Living and Learning long term plan details the learning for each year group across the year and you can keep up to date with our weekly Living and Learning statements on the parent noticeboard in the playground and also on the school calendar. We will begin and end this half term with a focus on manners.
I apologise when I need to.
I say please and thank you.
Phonics mornings
Don’t forget to attend one of our phonics lessons this week.
Please join us on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday morning to see your children learn and find out how you can support them at home.
Don’t worry if you haven’t signed up yet – just come along!
See you there!
Archemedes and the Vicious Vikings
The next stop on our travels through time has been the Viking Ages. Year 4 have looked closely at the boats used by these fearsome warriors.
“The boats needed to be strong to carry so many men,” stated Sami.
“Why did they come across the seas?” enquired Jessica.
Following some research the children found out some very interesting facts about the boats.
Though Viking boats came in many shapes and sizes, the most iconic and effective Viking vessel was undoubtedly the long ship. Long, narrow and flat, long ships were fast, durable and capable of navigating both choppy seas and shallow rivers. They were also light enough to be carried over land.
Then, came the question, “How do boats float?”
We discussed that boats, canoes, ships, kayaks, and rafts all have one thing in common- they are used for transport on seas and rivers, because they float.
It’s easy to figure out that if they are made out of wood they will float, because wood floats in water. However, when you see a huge cargo ship or a cruise-liner that looks like a floating building on the water, you can’t help but wonder why this massive chunk of metal doesn’t sink.
Due to the curiosity of the children wanting to find out more about floating, our lesson took a slight scientific diversion.
Using just a bowl of water, some weighing scales and Blu Tac, I gave the children a question.
“If two objects have the same mass, will they both float?”
The class used some prior knowledge and were able to make great scientific predictions.
“No, they will both sink because the objects are the same weight.”
“It depends on the shape of the object”.
“I think the air in the object will make a difference.”
“I predict that one will float. If the objects are different shapes then it depends how much water will be pushed away.” An excellent prediction from Harris!
“The heavier it is the more it will sink.”
“I remember learning about a man called Archimedes who sat in a bath and shouted Eureka! I think that was something about floating.”
This interesting fact then left the children inquisitive to know more about the man taking a bath.! Together, we found out about this great mathematician and why he became famous just for sitting in the bath!
The Archimedes’ Principle
A long time ago in ancient Greece, a mathematician named Archimedes was taking a bath. When he got in, a certain amount of water got displaced and overflowed over the rim of the tub. Why?
Archimedes figured out that if the weight of the object being placed in the water is less that the weight of the water displaced, the object will float. This is known as buoyancy or the Archimedes’ Principle.
Following this new piece of scientific information it was time to get back to our experiment.
“If two objects have the same mass, will they both float?”
The solid ball of Blu Tac sank straight to the bottom. The Blu Tac shaped like a boat floated.
“Why?” I questioned the children.
“It is because the weight of the Blu Tac has been spread out across a bigger area.” stated Felix.
“The boat isn’t heavy enough to push the water out of the way.” said Albie.
I was so impressed with the questions asked by the children and by how inquisitive they were. Despite not starting off as a Science lesson, it was important to follow the children’s curiosities and this led them to further investigations, improved understanding and deepening scientific enquiry skills.
Well done Year 4!
Bonfire night themed menu
When we return to school, on Monday 05 November, there will be a bonfire night themed menu.
Champion chariots
This week, Year 4 have completed their Roman chariots. The final thing left to do was to test the chariots against the agreed design criteria. The children have worked very hard to make their product functional, appealing and fit for purpose
Design Criteria
Election ready
The polling station is all set up and ready for the annual School Council elections tomorrow.
Good luck to all candidates.
Making a Viking sun compass
Did you know that the Vikings were one of the first groups of people to invent the sun compass? Where would we be (literally) without inventing a way to navigate the globe?
This week, we have combined our statistics in maths and our Time Travel – Inventions learning to create a sun compass of our own. Hopefully we find out which way is North in the process!
We started by drawing a 9 x 2 table to record time and shadow length.
(We practised some measuring skills at the same time.)
At set intervals throughout the day – as long as the sun was playing ball – we went outside to create our sun compass.
First, we held a metre ruler perpendicularly to the floor to create a shadow. Using tape measures, we found out how long the shadow was and placed an ‘x’ in chalk at its tip.
As you can see from our tables, it was 333cm at 10am- much longer than we predicted!
Challenge your child! True or false? Explain why:
- The shadow was longest at 2pm
- The shadow was shortest at 11:30
- The shadow was 147cm at 10:30
After some intervals, we made predictions about the length of the shadow with varying degrees of success:
By the end of the day, we had made lots of chalk marks on the floor. By drawing a line from our starting point to the closest section of the curve, we have found North!
Living and Learning: Democracy
Thursday 25 October sees us voting for our new school councillors. We’ve been learning all about democracy in preparation for our own election and the children have had lots of questions.
At home, talk about how our country’s voting system works and what your opinions are. The children had some interesting views on what age people should be allowed to vote and when they should not be allowed to anymore. The candidates delivered their speeches today ready for us to make informed decisions in the morning.
Well done to all of those people who chose to stand for election and good luck!
All stand for the judge…
Having learnt all about the gunpowder plot during our topic lessons, we attended court to find out more with lots of us taking on the roles of the main characters.
Not only is this a fun way of extending our knowledge, but it also helps us with our writing. We thought about what questions we’d like to ask the different people involved in the story and what their answers would have been at the time.
The suspects: Guy Fawkes, Robert Catesby, Thomas Percy, John Wright
The witnesses: Mary Arkwright, Arthur Coniston, Lorn Monteagle, King James I 
The prosecution and the defence
The jury
The media
At times, the prosecution really put pressure on our suspects!
Bradford Media Museum
Yesterday, Year 6 went to the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford. We were exploring what engineers do to bring inventions to life as this is our theme for our Time Travel big topic. It was a jam-packed day; we got to see and do all sorts!
Not only did the IMAX film we saw make us squeal and reach out for the things that seemed to be coming out of the screen at us, but it also inspired many of us to want to be engineers. We realised what amazing things engineers achieve to help people and solve problems.
The Wonderlab was a great room to explore, finding out what UV light is, how sound waves can move water, how infrared cameras show which part of our bodies are hot and cold and how light can manipulated to create moving images.
The Engineering Show demonstrated how light can carry sound and taught us how our 3D glasses worked.
The Games Lounge was a step back in time to the very first arcade games which turned out to be just as fun as the games we play today.
We also explored the TV and Animation galleries, seeing how technology has advanced over recent years due to the skills of scientists, engineers and computer programmers.
