Year 3 Newsletter

 Year 3 newsletter

Science and STEM

This term, we have been lucky enough to have a day dedicated to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths). In year three, many of us have dream jobs that are heavily influenced by STEM. We spent the morning investigating different jobs and skills needed to be successful in this area.

We also participated in a variety of different activities to explore the different aspects of this such as: 

• planting a variety of seeds including pumpkins, peas, broad beans, radishes and many more!
• Exploring and identifying different plants around the school field using iPads
• Meeting and interviewing a blacksmith and inspecting the work he creates with his tools.
• Becoming experts in Mary Anning's work and removing "fossils" from ice blocks.
• Experimenting with reactions and forces using bottle rockets.

Reception Newsletter

We have had an interesting couple of weeks in Reception. The children loved last week's Science Days where they got to experience lots of different types of science. We looked at density in liquids, we went on a nature walk and enjoyed the science outside and we made our own playdough, observing what happened when we mixed different ingredients together. We were also so lucky to have a visit from The Royal Institute, who put on a very exciting show for us!

This week, we have been discussing healthy eating and talking about the Eatwell Guide and the rainbow of foods, where the children try and eat as many different colours of food as they can. We introduced the different food groups as well and encouraged the children to try and think of as many different types of carbohydrate, protein etc as they could. 

The children have really impressed us with the way they embraced learning about doubling in Maths this week! They loved using mirrors to press up against cubes and show the double amount and some children were even able to write the corresponding number sentence! We also made double patterns on  a giant butterfly with some shiny gems!

Year 1 Newsletter

 In Year 1 we have had our geographer's hats on and having been learning about coastal areas and the things you might find there.  In groups, the children labelled pictures with the different features they could see such as sand, cliffs, sea, pier, harbour, lighthouse, dunes and much more!   

                        

We had an awesome time on our whole school Science days!  We learnt all about STEM skills and thought about which of these skills we might need in jobs that we would like to do when we're grown ups. Siddhi's mum came to visit us and taught us about the skills she uses as a pharmacist.  She uses lots of different STEM skills. 

We had great fun with a waterlily investigation, making predictions and observing what happened when we put a paper waterlily with closed up petals into a tray of water.  The petals opened! 

 Then we did our own waterlily investigation in groups, changing one thing each.  Groups chose to change the material of the waterlily, the type of liquid, the depth of the liquid or the shape of the waterlilies to see if this affected the time it took for the waterlily to open. 

The children have been amazing scientists!

Continuing on our science day learning, we went outside for a minibeast hunt, looking for all sorts of beasties! We searched high and low, looking carefully on trees, under leaves and logs and in the long grass. 

With our artist's hats on, we discovered the seascapes that the wonderful Rachel Bennett creates!  In the immersion room, we shared what we liked about the paintings.  Back in class we continued our discussion and wrote our thoughts and feelings about the paintings around images on sugar paper. 

'I like this one because it makes me feel like I'm underwater.'

'I can see seaweed and waves crashing.'

'This is my favourite because it's like a beach.  There is the sky and clouds, then the sea and the sand at the bottom.'

'I like this one because of the shades of blue that she has used.'

Paintings by Rachel Bennett

Up, up, up and away!!! Our super science day.

We had a thrilling science day in nursery where everyone made a rocket which would zoom into the air when the children blew through the straw attached to the rocket. We had rockets flying everywhere!!

After the morning and afternoon session, Mrs Rooney did a fantastic science experiment firstly making elephants toothpaste then creating a fizzing explosion with mints and fizzy drink. Everyone had to stand back in the nursery garden as the fizzy drinks zoomed incredibly high. The parents and children were so excited watching these experiments and thoroughly enjoyed being part of science day.

Year 3 Newsletter

There's been a lot of science going on in Year 3 this week starting with making the most amazing rockets with Mr Forgham for science day!  We learnt some new vocabulary for the different parts of the rocket (we now know what a fuselage is!) and how to build one out of card and lots of sellotape!  We had such great fun making them and the children worked together brilliantly.  We are very proud of their teamwork, resilience and open-mindedness.   Launching them in the afternoon was very exciting and mostly successful.  A couple even flew over the ball court and nearly reached forest school and these were the furthest out of all 60 rockets in year 3 and 4!  Congratulations to these rocket makers!
We also investigated what makes the best parachutes for eggs and tested 4 different types: kitchen roll, fabric, plastic bag and a bin bag.  We made predictions before we dropped them from the same height.  Most of us thought that the bin bag would be the best because it would collect the largest amount of air inside due to the having the largest surface area.  However, we were incredibly surprised when the only parachute that got the egg safely down to the ground without breaking it was the kitchen roll!!!
Other lessons this week have seen us develop different strategies for adding mentally, learning about the story of Muhammad (PBUH) and his escape from Mecca with the help of a spider and a dove, delving deeper into writing recounts in English and discovering more about Egyptian Gods.

Making the fuselage 

Making the nose cone and fins 

Adding the nose cone

Adding personalised details

The finished article!

The kitchen roll parachute

Not even a crack!

Year 6 go Up! Up! Up!

This week the children were blown away by Dan from the Royal Institution of Science. He 'wowed' the children with his scientific demonstrations in our morning assembly- inclusive of multiple bangs and flashes!

Following the theme of 'Up! Up! Up!', the children were then given the opportunity to investigate lift and gravitational forces. The children designed and made their own helicopters. They were able to adapt their designs and test the proficiency of them by recording the time it took their helicopters to land and the number of times their propellers rotated.

In the afternoon, the children were then able to wow their parents, siblings and carers. The children showed off their rockets designs and set their rockets off using the chemical reaction between Alka Seltzer tablets and water. The children learnt that the chemical reaction produced a CO2 build up within the film canisters creating a pressure build up making the lid pop! This led to our discussion over Newton's third law of motion explaining why when the rocket went off on its side, the lid went one way and the rocket went the other- for ever reaction there is an equal and opposite reaction. As well as learning all of this the children had a great time and we hope that we encouraged their love of learning! Thank you to all our guests who came to watch and share the children's excitement on this brilliant day.

Science Day in Year 2

In Science Day this week, we tested different materials to see which would be best to make a parachute. We tested three materials using a hairdryer underneath to see which one had the best air resistance when we turned it on. We made our parachutes by attaching four pieces of string and a maths cube to a piece of material. We made sure our experiment was a fair test and only changed one thing (the type of material we chose). We tested our parachutes by launching them off of the ramp on the KS1 playground. We found out that material that was light and thin created the best air resistance and would be the best material to use for a parachute. We also had a very exciting assembly during Science Day. Science man Dan came in and we learnt lots about different types of energy. Some of us even got to go to the front and do the experiments. We had lots of fun on Science Day!