Monthly archives: May 2021

Which spoon is best?

 in Science / Skiddaw by

Our science work on fair testing and materials over the last two weeks has been linked to the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears! Which spoon would be best for Father Bear to stir the hot porridge with so he didn’t burn his hand?

In the first week, Mrs Wadey demonstrated it all wrong and didn’t make it a fair test at all – she had different sized pots, different sized spoons and put the spoons in all at different times. We were challenged to do better!

We had to choose our equipment from a vast selection to carry out a fair test to see which spoon conducted heat the least and would keep Father Bear’s hand cool whilst he stirred and made the porridge for breakfast – wood, plastic or metal?

Many of Y3 and Y4 devised ways of recording their own results and others worked together to create a table. Most children found out, concluded, that metal would get warm quite quickly and so wouldn’t be a good choice for Father Bear. Our discussion about why metal spoons were OK for eating but NOT good for cooking were interesting too and included thinking about how long the spoon was in contact with the hot food! Great scientific thinking and recording on this by all.

Year 2 violinists

 in Skiddaw by

Year 2 are currently learning to play the violin with Mrs Hurley on Tuesday mornings. This year the lessons are being funded with special thanks to a kind bequest from Guy and Maggie Paton, local residents, in memory of their son Jamie. They are on lesson 7 of 10 and are enjoying learning how to hold the instrument comfortably, pluck and play the strings and use the bow too. This is involving lots of multitasking but the pupils are doing brilliantly following instructions and having lots of success!

Here they are in action…

 

Persuasive Writing in Years 5+6

 in English / Scafell / Whole School by

Pupils in Scafell have been undertaking a unit of work on persuasive writing which is linked to our current science topic on health and the human body.

We began with an apprentice-like challenge where we had to create a new toothpaste, develop the name of the product and the branding.  This involved some research on current toothpaste brands and their marketing techniques.

Once ideas about new products had been developed, we enjoyed some market research tasks to find out how our peers viewed our designs.  We then set about developing a poster campaign and radio advertisements to market our exciting, new products.

Our final piece of writing in this unit of work, is a more formal online magazine article informing young people about the detrimental impact of smoking on the human body and persuading the reader that it is never a good idea to smoke.

Which advert catches your eye?   Which toothpaste would you buy?

Green fingers in Scafell

 in Scafell / Science / Whole School by

Scafell enjoyed planting our seedlings in our new outdoor classroom this week!! We are looking forward to seeing them flower over the next few weeks.

Year One explore algorithms

 in Bowfell / Whole School by

This week Year One began their computing topic about algorithms. They had to think logically about how to give a robot the correct instructions to brush its teeth. The next challenge was to work together to build Lego models, capturing picture instructions at each stage for another group to follow.

Our Amazing Earth

 in Geography / Skiddaw by

To understand about how mountains are made, how volcanoes erupt or what earthquakes are, we first need to know that the earth has different layers inside. We have been having great fun creating playdough earth models! The middle layer of red is the core, the orange is the mantle and the brown the crust. Land and sea have been added too. We know that the mantle and outer core are made from rock that is so hot that it is liquid and so it really would be impossible to dig a very deep hole and pop out on the other side of the world! We decided to slice our earths in half instead to reveal the hidden layers. Here we are making our playdough worlds…

 

Bowfell’s sensory space

 in Bowfell / Whole School by

Nursery and Reception children have enjoyed exploring Bowfell’s new sensory space on our mezzanine level in the classroom. The dark den cave was a huge hit as well as the fascinating bubble lights and goo tubes!

Problems With Plastics

 in Science / Skiddaw by

Skiddaw class are learning all about materials in science. We watched a live BBC lesson all about the problems of plastics in our oceans. This inspired us to make posters to help others understand what they can do to help. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is a clear and easy way for everyone to make a difference.

Here are some of our designs.