Animals including Humans

Today we investigated what makes a healthy balanced diet and looked at the different food groups. Together we discussed what foods would fit our food pyramid and designed our own balanced three course meals!

This topic will allow us to explore what is needed for a healthy lifestyle, as well exploring the skeleton and the way we move.

Rocks and Soils

Today we had a virtual workshop experience over zoom with the Lapworth Museum of Geology at the University of Birmingham! The session explored fossils on earth and underwater, the different types of rocks and minerals that can be found, how rocks are made and what is on display at the museum.The children were very engaged and the link to their post session activities is on seesaw should you wish to see what we did as well!

So far, we have investigated how rocks are made and sorted rocks based on their appearance and other physical qualities. We used magnifying glasses to take a closer look and tested whether they scratched and left marks and how porous they were. We recorded our results together in a venn diagram. 

Our next topic in Science is rocks and soils! Here are the objectives we aim to meet by way of practical investigation and research into different types of rock and how fossils and soil are formed!

-Compare and group together different kinds of rocks on the basis of their appearance and simple physical properties

-Describe in simple terms how fossils are formed when things that have lived are trapped within rock

-Recognise that soils are made from rocks and organic matter

Forces and Magnets

This week we applied all of our knowledge about forces and magnets and took part in a carousel activity, including quizzes, games, sorting activities and write ups!

As part of Science week, we created Rube Goldberg devices. We researched about him and his life, planned our own inventions and then in small groups created them!

Today we investigated gravity and what it would be like in Space! We made our own rocket heads and launched them using our milk cartons to create the force needed for them to fly into space! 

As part of Science Week, today we investigated our Scientist Elijah McCoy and his invention for the steam trains. We watched this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWZMZ34yizk and learnt about his automatic lubricator cup that help spread oil more evenly over parts of a moving engine which ultimately made trains run smoother and faster!

Today we experimented with magnets and investigated how they attract and repel. We also conducted an experiment into which objects are magnetic and non-magnetic within the classroom. 

In the Spring term, the children will be looking at forces and magnets. This will involve looking at pushes, pulls and friction and how different surfaces impact this, as well as how magnets can attract and repel different objects and why this is. Keep a look out for the exciting experiments we get up to after Christmas! 

Plants

This week we are investigating how water is transported in plants. Here is the plan of our investigation and our flowers at the beginning of our experiment! 

A week later and here are the results!

We can not believe how quickly they have grown! It will soon be time to see if we have an answer to our question-Does the number of seeds affect the height of the cress? Today we will be measuring to see what our conclusions will be! 

Today, we used last weeks knowledge to create our own fair test. We considered lots of different factors and decided upon which variables we would change. We agreed to keep the light, temperature, size of plant pot and the amount of water the same and only change the number of seeds. Our question was 'Does the number of seeds affect how tall the cress grows?' We are keeping a cress diary to observe changes over time. 

In our first lesson we looked at what plants need to grow. We identified features of plants and how they are suited to particular jobs, for example, the roots anchor deep into the ground and hold the plant in place, whilst also transporting nutrients and water. 

Light!

This terms topic is light! We have had a lot of fun practically investigating key questions, making predictions and coming to conclusions! So far we have...

Investigated what light is, where it comes from and the difference between light sources and reflectors.

Identified and described the differences between natural and artificial light and been able to give different examples.

Identified what shadows are, how they are made, and why they appear to move and change shape. 

We have discovered that...

Light travels in straight lines

Light sources are things that emit light, such as, the sun, while reflectors cause the light to bounce back, such as, mirrors or the moon

Shadows are formed when light is blocked 

The size of the shadow depends on how close it is to a light source

The darkness of a shadow depends on whether the object is opaque, transparent or translucent.