The Chronicle

Our young scientists in Junior 6 carried out some exciting investigations this week! They set out to prove, or to disprove, the theory that as you exercise your breathing rate increases, but your heart rate stays the same. The children worked in groups to plan their investigation, collect results and explain their findings. They discussed variables and how to provide informed explanations. Junior 6 measured their heart rates immediately after exercise and at certain time intervals beyond that. They counted the number of times they could feel the pulse in 15 seconds and multiplied it by 4 to get the number of beats per minute. Teamworking skills were required as they took on different roles in their groups, such as timekeeper, runner and recorder. The children also thought about how best to record the information. Afterwards they reflected on their investigations and discussed how they could improve the accuracy. Wonderful work, Junior 6! 
 

This week in Junior 5, the children have been busy continuing their learning about forces. They were tasked with investigating air resistance, with the aim of discovering if the size of a parachute affects the time it takes to fall to the ground. Our budding scientists learnt the importance of variables, improving their investigation skills. Importantly, they all had fun dropping their parachutes from a height, watching their little blue tac men fall to the ground. The question we all had in our minds -  is (air) resistance futile? You’ll have to ask the children for the answer and don’t ask pesky Borgs!

Junior 4 have had a fantastic week. We have been planning an alternative ending for our class book, Escape from Pompeii as well as continuing our work on learning the timestables up to 12 x 12. We have also been conducting experiments about the three states of matter and discovering how the location and temperature of water affects the rate of evaporation. In Geography, we learnt about the stages of a volcano eruption, the life cycle of a volcano and even made our own volcanoes in the forest school area.

Junior 3 are becoming masters at using manipulatives to solve mathematical problems in a concrete way. By using place value counters, base 10 and cubes, the children in Junior 3 are increasing their understanding of mathematics, before they then use pictoral and abstract methods of recording. Seesaw has been an excellent tool to enable the children to photograph and video their concrete understanding with ease. The children really do enjoy exploring, solving and recording maths in such a wide variety of ways.

What an exciting week it has been in Junior 2. On Monday, we received an email from Dr. Agon, a fellow dragonologist, who informed us of a rare and amazing occurrence. A dragon has been spotted flying in the skies above Crackley Hall! Dr. Agon went on to explain that it is very likely that the dragon is hiding in the woods behind our school. He asked us if we would kindly help him by going out into our forest school area and looking for clues that a dragon may have been there. He also reassured us that it was very unlikely that we would come across the dragon itself, as dragons are nocturnal creatures, and also rather shy. We quickly compiled a list of possible clues that we thought might indicate the presence of a dragon; footprints, burned foliage, scratch marks and possibly even dragon poo! Sure enough, on venturing bravely out, we quickly discovered lots of clues and recorded these on our digital journal. We will be completing a full report for Dr. Agon and awaiting further instructions. Meanwhile, the dragon egg that we discovered and are caring for, is coming along nicely. Due to the freezing, snowy weather, we have moved it closer to the radiator and we think we have detected signs of a small crack in the shell.

Junior 1 have been enjoying writing letters to Jack and the Beanstalk's mother in English; it appears that Jack went missing and the children were asked for their help. In return the children received a golden coin as a thank you for helping to solve this problem. All our children have been so keen to show their expressive vocabulary and understanding of communication. The anticipation of sending the letter off was most exhilarating as was the wait for a reply. In History they have discovered that having a bath in the Victorian times was not as luxurious as it is nowadays. After collecting the water from the outside pump, you had to heat it on the fire before you could start taking turns to have a lukewarm bath. Everyone agreed that a nice hot bubble bath is much more preferable!

In Understanding the World this week we continued our learning about the seasons. The snow couldn't have come at a better time, as the children did an investigation with two hot water bottles to find out how animals stay warm in winter. They wrapped one up in fur and covered it in leaves, and left the other hot water bottle uncovered. They pretended these were bears hibernating for the winter in a cave. After checking on them during the afternoon, they learnt that the fur covered hot water stayed warm, but the uncovered bottle quickly cooled down. The children agreed that fur keeps animals warm in the cold by trapping in the heat and the layers of leaves stopped the heat from escaping. The children then went on to think how they stay warm in the cold, and looked at the clothing they wear and what it is made of. An extra bit of homework this weekend is for the children to practise putting on their own gloves, as this proved very tricky for most this week!