What is a lever?
This week’s Science is all about levers. As a short introduction, to learn the parts of a lever, Y5 were challenged to make a balanced lever using a pencil, ruler and two coins.
Challenge your child! In our mini lever, which part was the:
- beam?
- load?
- fulcrum?
Some of us managed it to make our levers balanced!
Living and Learning – Discrimination
In this week’s Living and Learning lesson, our topic was discrimination. But first, we watched a video about Welsh rugby legend, Gareth Thomas, and thought of adjectives to describe him.
Next, we discussed a recent news story where Gareth Thomas was targeted in a homophobic attack. This means that he was assaulted because he is gay.
Gareth Thomas decided to use restorative practice and to sit down with his attacker and talk. He said: “I thought the perpetrator would learn more that way.” We discussed how the following words were just as applicable for his actions after being attacked as well as playing rugby.
We talked about discrimination against other groups of people, too. We defined sexism, racism, disablism and homophobia.
Importantly, we discussed what to do if you see or hear any discriminatory behaviour or what you should do if it happens to you.
You should call it for what it is. For example, “That’s discrimination and that’s not ok.” You should tell an adult or someone you trust. Being open and honest with what you see or what happens can help everyone to learn.
We linked our L&L to our reading, using a RIC (Retrieve, Infer and understand writer’s Choice). This helped us discuss who might be discriminated against and that it’s not right because everyone should be treated fairly and given the same opportunities.
Challenge your child: Can they tell you a definition for discrimination without looking? Do they know what to do if they see or hear it happening?
Living and learning: New Childline website – Speak out Stay safe
Staying Safe is one of our Living and Learning related themed weeks this year, taking place in February.
As part of the NSPCC’s Speak out Stay safe programme, Childline has launched a Speak out Stay safe website aimed at children under the age of 12. This provides age appropriate content on topics including: bullying, family, friends, feelings, school, abuse and staying safe. It also includes games and therapeutic tools for young visitors to play and express how they are feeling.
School Savings Club
The next School Savings Club paying in date is 13 December 2018 at 3.15-3.45pm.
If you’re unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be deposited to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Mrs Tiffany.
Paying in dates fall on the penultimate Thursday of each half term.
If your child would like to open account, please ask at the office. This is a great opportunity for children to begin to manage their own money and understand the importance of saving.
New school meal menu
Our new Spring/Summer school meal menu, starting from after February half term, is now available on our Meals page.
The menu has been created in liaison with Catering Leeds to ensure it meets the School Food Standards. We have also incorporated feedback from our school cook, pupils and parents/carers.
Pupils will continue to make their daily food choices at the start of the day to ensure they receive their first choice of main meal.
Water resistance is wonderful!
In Science, this week, Year 5 have been learning about water resistance. We set up an experiment that would test which plasticine shapes were the most and least water resistant using large cylindrical flasks of water.
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Next, we planned our different shapes within our groups.
Using the same sized lump of plasticine, we then made each of our shapes. Challenge your child: Why was it important to use the same size blob of plasticine?
In order to test the water resistance, we dropped shape 1 and 2 into the tubes. Every round, the fastest shape would advance. At the end, we were left with the fastest shape and therefore the shape with the least water resistance.
Action replay 1 – Notice how the garlic bulb shape on the right fell a lot slower. This is because it had a very flat surface on the bottom which increased the water resistance.
Some races were so close that we needed a slow-mo replay from our chief photographer, Mr Wicks, who was able to get a screen shot of an action replay to determine which touched the bottom first!
Shapes that were more streamlined and thinner (e.g. cones) had less water resistance and fell quicker. Shapes that had flat faces or were bulky (e.g. cubes) had more water resistance and they fell really slowly. It was great to see it happening before our very eyes!
(Sometimes, it didn’t always go to plan: blooper 1 and blooper 2.)
When will be your next Park Run?
Thank you to Richard Spencer (parent, chair of the PTA and Park Run race director at Roundhay Park) who came to speak to the whole school this afternoon about the great, free, weekly Park Run events held locally.
We were impressed by the number of children who have already completed a Park Run event with one pupil achieving over 100 runs!
All you need to take part is to register for your personal bar code that is used at the event to record your position and time for the run. ThePark Run event is not a race. You are only trying to beat yourself by achieving a faster time each time you do it.
There is no commitment to attend every weekend: just turn up with your bar code when you can.
The course is fully marshalled and so children are able to run round with others as long as an adult accompanies them to the event.
- Junior Park Run (age 4-14 years – 2km course) 9am every Sunday
- Park Run (5km course) 9am every Saturday
- Local courses include Roundhay Park, Temple Newsam and Bodington (Brownlee Centre)
We’d love to hear your Park Run achievements – let your teacher know!
What charity should our school support?
And the winner is…
Year 5’s chosen charity (the World Wildlife Fund) eventually went on to be chosen by our school council as Moortown’s new charity.
Here’s an extract from their website:
The world’s leading conservation organization, WWF works in 100 countries and is supported by more than one million members in the United States and close to five million globally. WWF’s unique way of working combines global reach with a foundation in science, involves action at every level from local to global, and ensures the delivery of innovative solutions that meet the needs of both people and nature.
Air resistance is amazing! Part 2
To test the science behind the parachute slowing us down when running, we set up an experiment involving parachutes, eggs and a window.
Year 5 worked in groups to make three different parachute sizes. We wanted to investigate which parachute had the most air resistance and therefore slow the egg’s fall the most to prevent it from breaking. It was important to keep everything else the same so that we could tell that it was definitely the parachute size affecting the results.
Next, it was the moment of truth. We waited patiently below to observe the speed of the parachute’s fall and whether or not our eggs cracked. A slower fall would mean more air resistance and, ultimately, an egg in less danger!
We found that the larger parachutes fell slower and had more success protecting their eggs. Smaller parachutes fell very quickly to the ground. This means larger parachutes have a greater air resistance and smaller parachutes have less air resistance.
Air resistance is amazing!
This week, Year 5 have been learning about air resistance! Here’s our post to get you up to speed on our sprinting experiment. Hope it’s not a drag!
We had three participants who first ran from the gate to the gazebo and back without the parachute on (shown here by our fantastic photographers) and these were timed.
The same people ran again but this time with a parachute attached to their back and timed again.
All three participants were much slower on their second run. Challenge your child to explain the science behind it!
Our participants said:
- “It felt like someone was pulling you back when you were running!”
- “It felt like someone lightly tugging you as you were running.”
- “The parachute run was harder. The faster you go, the more the wind pulls you back.”
- “It was quite exciting to see how fast they went.”
- “The parachute run had more air resistance because the air was getting trapped in the parachute and slowing it down.”
- “It was nice seeing how quick they were and seeing how much difference the parachute made.”
- “I was kind of surprised and kind of not surprised. I was surprised that it made it that much slower but I did know that it would make them slower.”