Year 3 enjoyed our Sports Relief circuit training today run by Mr Darby and some Year 5 children. We competed in house colours on four different activities; hockey shot, throwing, step ups and skipping. We all worked fabulously as a team to get as many points as possible, cheering each other on all the way. The overall winner for Year 3 was blue house, well done Blue house!
As part of British Science Week, Year 4 have been learning about cargo ships and transporting goods around the world. We found out about the Cutty Sark which was built in 1869 and the children discussed how the ship managed to transport tea from China to England all those years ago.
The children were split into small teams and challenged to investigate the best shape, size and materials to use to keep a boat afloat. All teams made a rectangle shaped boat from paper as an initial test and investigated how many pennies the boat could hold before the boat sunk.
The groups had a fantastic afternoon and made wonderful boats in numerous shapes, sizes and used materials such as cardboard, plastic, paper, foam, foil and material. The children recorded their findings and found that larger boats could distribute the weight better and therefore took longer to sink and waterproof materials helped to stop the boats letting in water.
Despite the current situation in the UK, our staff have still been working and we have been open to the children of Key Workers. We are proud to provide support to these children and their families during this time. The children who have been in school this week have been such great fun and have taken part in a variety of activities.
On our walk back from the library this week we were very excited to spot not one but two rainbows. On Thursday this week we investigated are rainbows all around us?
We gathered together at Learning Challenge Headquarters to discuss this big question. The children talked about how they thought rainbows are made.
Some children suggested that rainbows are made from the rain, others thought it had something to do with a sunny day. Some children even thought it was unicorns magical horns that created the rainbows!
We talked about the weather on Tuesday and how this might have helped to create the rainbows we saw.
We watched a science clip that introduced us to the idea that the lights we see are made up of all of the colours, but when it is bent the colours appear.
We were introduced to the scientific word ‘refraction’ – how light can be bent as it passes through another object causing the spectrum of colours to appear.
The children were then challenge to answer the questions Can you find the colours of the rainbow in our garden? Can we see a rainbow? Can you make a rainbow?
Some children went in to the garden to investigate the colours in the natural world around us. They collected samples from the garden and compared them to the colours of the rainbow. They then explored what colours they could extract from these natural things.
Other children were very excited to use torches and CDs to explore light refraction. they were amazed to see the colours appearing in the reflective surface. The children noticed that by moving the torch they could change the shape and strength of the colours.
Some children chose to investigate how they can combine paints to make new colours to create a rainbow.
We finished our investigation by once again gathering together to review our activities. We found that some of the colours in the rainbow are around us in our garden and one child was even able to say that the colours in the garden change over the year. The children who investigated making their own colours of the rainbow were able to talk about how they combined the colours. The children who investigated can you see a rainbow, explained how they were able to bend the light to create rainbows. We are now waiting for a beautiful sunny day to investigate if we can bend the light with water in the garden.
Class One and Two visited East Boldon Library on Tuesday. After a very windy walk , the children were shown around the library. They had time to look through the children’s section and select their own book. They then took their book to be stamped. It was many of the children’s first visit to the library and they had lots of questions to ask about what things were and why things happened.
We are looking forward to making lots more trips to the the library in the future.
In Literacy this week, Class 9 have been learning about instruction writing and how important it is to write clear and precise instructions. We have been learning about Lent in RE so decided to write instructions for making (microwave) pancakes. In small groups, we drafted the method step by step. We then tried to follow our instructions exactly as we had written them. The children quickly realised that they had not written clear and precise instructions which led to hilarious results. Some groups forgot to open the pancakes, some groups didn’t turn the microwave on, and some left their toppings in the bag or jar.
The children went back and improved their instructions so they could actually make their pancakes successfully and more importantly eat them.
Year 1 have enjoyed learning more about high and low notes in music. We then used the instruments to play high and low notes.
Class 8 recently enjoyed a trip to EDF Power Station in Hartlepool. The children’s Science topic during the Autumn Term was ‘Electricity’ and the trip provided them with a great opportunity to extend their knowledge further. The children enjoyed a presentation where they learned that Hartlepool Power Station is a nuclear power station on the north east coast of England, how they make electricity there and how it is capable of supplying electricity to over 2 million UK homes.
In preparation for our Summer Term Science topic, ‘Living Things and their Habitats’ the children had an opportunity to explore the habitat of, and categorise local living creatures. Following a presentation from the staff at Teesmouth Field Centre, the children enjoyed a scavenger hunt on Teesmouth Beach – using their fingers like a bird’s beak to dig down into the sand. The children found evidence of a variety of animals and habitats – such as; Cockle Shells, Razor Shells, Crabs, Worm Casts, Snail Shells, Sand Dunes, Marram Grass and many more.
We celebrated World Book day on Friday 6th March.
The children and staff all joined in by either dressing up as their favourite story character or coming to school in their best pyjamas, ready to share some ‘bedtime’ stories.
Each class visited the fire pit to enjoy a story and marshmallow around the fire.
This week in science, Year 3 have been investigating which magnets are the strongest. We know it’s not just about the size of the magnet, but the strength of a magnet’s magnetic field. We tested out 5 different magnets to see how many paper clips would be attracted to each. Here is a pictogram of our results:
