Ear defenders and popcorn?
To finish off our topic on sound, the children were set a task to design and make some ear defenders. The main objective was to find out which materials were the best to use to muffle or reduce sound.
The children looked closely at the resources available and then made predictions. They had to think carefully about making their tests fair.
- “I think that cotton wool will be best because you can pack it into all the space.”
- “The ear defenders need to fit securely to your head otherwise sound can still travel through to your ears.”
Time to get going ….
Time to test the ear defenders…
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What a laugh we had! Ask your child to find out what happened.
Cooking with sound?
Year 4 staff and children thought about what ingredients, whilst cooking, would create sound. We came up with popcorn.
Honey and popcorn flapjacks
The children had to listen carefully to the sound of the popping corn and describe it. We all had great fun and the noisy flapjack tasted delicious!
- “I’ve had the best lesson ever.”
- “I understand how sound travels now.”
- “This learning has been great fun!”
Well done to all the children and many thanks to Mrs Pearson and Mrs Charlesworth for all their hard work. It has been a fun, and sometimes noisy, mini topic. We all now need some peace and quiet so enjoy the half term break.
Walk to school prize draw
Well done to all pupils who have encouraged their families to walk to school this week or if you had to come by car, you have parked further away to park and stride. We hope you have enjoyed the benefits of this active travel.
Once our Living Streets travel tracker data is available after the half term, we will have the prize draw for all children who have walked/used park and stride this week.
Hope you get some chance this half term to continue to enjoy lots of physical activity – maybe a local walk, a parkrun, a bike ride or a swim.
Homework
I am aware of my route to school.
This week, the children were asked to explore their local area on foot.
We had some super pieces of work from filming a route to school using a camera attached to a dog’s collar to an ‘order my journey’ activity.
The children had spotted points of interest – houses, buildings, gardens, street furniture, historical landmarks, street names and local amenities, favourite shops, doctors and cafes.
We discussed points of improvement and spotted things that made our walk unpleasant. This included obstacles on the routes (pavements blocked with cars & bins), litter (where are the bins and whether littering is a problem) and difficult road crossings.
We will be adding all this information to a class map.
Super skipping
Today, we had a brilliant morning with five other primary schools at Trinity University for the Skipping School Year 4 festival. There was some fantastic skipping on display and all children got a chance to show the skills they’ve been learning at school and at home over the past few months.
We feel very proud of the children’s achievements It’s been great to see how the children have improved and shown resilience when learning the new skipping skills. A special well done to our medal winners.
‘It’s been so much fun!’
“I wasn’t very confident at skipping and now I am.”
Moortown Living Streets Local Group has launched!
A new ‘parent led’ Living Streets group has been set up in Moortown to campaign for improved streets in the local area.
The launch coincides with the publication of a new Family Walk To School Kit to mark #WalktoSchoolWeek, a national event from UK charity Living Streets.
The Moortown group is the first local group in Leeds and will be working towards creating a safer, more enjoyable environment for people in our area.
Please help us make Moortown better by registering to receive news from us.
Find out more and stay informed about our upcoming initiatives:
https://www.livingstreets.org.uk/what-you-can-do/local-groups/moortown
Have you been walking to school?
Have you been coming on foot to school during walk to school week this week? If so, you will be in the prize draw on Friday. The more times you walk or park and stride, the more entries into the draw you will have.
Take a look at our walk to school video for more facts and benefits of this form of active travel.
Walk to School week
Thank you to Zariaat from Living Streets for our Walk to School week assembly this afternoon.
We reminded ourselves about lots of benefits of walking to school – less traffic and pollution near the school gates, spending time with family and friends and physical and mental health improvements.
Don’t forget our prize draw on Friday for all pupils who have walked or used a park and stride option this week.
Well done to Year 2 who have recorded the most active travel journeys to school so far this year.
Brownlee Triathlon
Some of our KS2 pupils have enjoyed taking part in the Brownlee Triathlon at John Smeaton Leisure Centre in the sunshine today. They’ve completed the three elements of the triathlon – swim, bike and run.
Walk to School week
This week, we will be taking part in national Walk to School week. It looks like the perfect weather for it too!
We’re sure you’ll agree these are all great benefits of walking to school.
During Walk to School week, children who walk to school or park further away and walk the rest of the journey (park and stride) will all be entered into a prize draw to win one of five £10 vouchers at the end of the week.
We are also looking forward to hearing about what you notice on your route to school as part of our whole school homework this week.
National Walk to School week has featured in this week’s First News.
By taking a walk to school, children will be working towards our Living and Learning statement for this week.
I recognise mental health is important.
Why not try this Supermovers quiz to see how physical activity can boost children’s mental wellbeing.
It’s oh so quiet ………
Our next topic, Sound, started this week. We began by playing a game called Identify the Sound. This was great fun with some very interesting noises.
Following that, the class were asked to predict which areas in school would be the quietest and loudest. Then, off we went.
Year 4 were asked to complete their sound walk in total silence. The only sound was the beat of a drum to give them the next instruction. This was a great success!
The next part of our lesson was to find out how sounds are made and how they travel.
Using instruments and varying levels of noise, we learnt that sound is created when something vibrates and sends waves of energy (vibration) into our ears. The vibrations travel through the air particles to the ear.
- “The stronger the vibrations, the louder the sound.”
- “Sounds are fainter the further you get from the sound source.”
- “Sound changes depending on how fast or slow an object vibrates to make sound waves.”
Having discovered how sound travels through air, our next challenge will be to find out whether it can travel through water and solids.
Stay posted!
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