Double, double, toil and trouble!

On Monday afternoon we continued exploring potions in a practical way. Cue the white coats and the goggles! We made magic slime, magic cabbage colour-changing potion, a scented perfume and a fizzing potion. The children had to carry out the experiment and write down their observations including why the reaction took place. There was a plethora of brilliant science vocabulary on show. I heard: solid, liquid, gas, particles, non-Newtonian fluid, neutral, acid, alkali, indicator, neutralise, carbon dioxide, change of state and many more. Seriously impressive - well done Year 4!

Maths - PERIMETER

In all of our maths lessons this week we have been exploring length and perimeter. Including understanding the difference between regular and irregular shapes. The children were even given permission to draw on the tables… cue the tentative drawing on the table when Mr. King entered with some visitors for our open day! Great effort this week in maths - keep it up Owls!

Investigating Chemical Reactions

On Thursday afternoon Owl Class undertook some investigations into a couple of chemical reactions. We looked the role of an indicator in determining whether a substance was an acid or an alkali and used it on vinegar and bicarbonate of soda. We discovered that vinegar was an acid and that bicarbonate of soda was an alkali and as such they produced a reaction to neutralise each other. We watched our balloons expand (or explode in a couple of cases!) with Carbon Dioxide, which was the gas given off by the chemical reaction. All in all a thoroughly interesting investigation - even writing it up was fun!

Brilliant Bignor!

On Tuesday 22nd October Year 4 undertook a trip to Bignor Roman Villa. The children were a real credit to the school with their knowledge, facts and enthusiasm for the topic. We have loved studying the Romans this half term and I know that in Owl Class we have some really hooked historians. Thank you for a lovely day Year 4, it was fabulous fun!

P.S. A big thank you to the adult helpers that came and were well behaved too!

Marvellous Maths!

On Wednesday in Owl Class we were exploring the idea of a thousand (M if you are of the Roman persuasion!) more and a thousand less with a variety of different numbers and different representations. There were children sorting through multilink, base 10, diennes and all manner of visual representation. The children worked super hard on three different levels of challenge and I was really pleased with the collaborative and independent work they produced. Well done Owls! Have a lovely weekend.

Thank you Grandma!

As part of our 150 Year celebrations we were lucky enough to be able to interview a former pupil of the school. My wife’s grandma attended the school in the 1950s and the Year 4s wrote some amazing historical enquiry questions to ask her. Ranging from behaviour and punishments to school lunch, it was great to hear from a living source, all about school at that time. A big thank you to all the children for their enthusiasm and range of questions and thank you to Grandma for answering them!

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Decisions, decisions...

On Wednesday afternoon we had great fun deciding where to build our Iron Age forts. The children worked quickly to identify relief (hilly land), woods, vegetation and a river/stream. They also worked quickly in using as many post-it-notes as they could in 20 minutes - it was impressive going. Great job everyone but we don’t think there will be any stopping the Roman conquerors coming next week… if you can’t beat them join them!

Medicine and Me

A big thank you to Mrs. Ward and her friends from Pfizer - particularly to our expert - Hannah. Alongside Year 3 we were taught all about the importance of science in medicine making. We had great fun mixing and experimenting with different substances as well as finding out some interesting pharmaceutical facts.

P.S. Lovely clean hands!

Farm Camp 2019

WOW! What an amazing couple of days away. A BIG Owl Class thank you to Mrs. Jesse, Miss Dore and Mr. King for taking the time out of their schedules to help us. We had an incredible time: playing, exploring, cooking, making, creating, learning and singing! I must say I learnt a thing or two about camping from some of the seasoned campers in our class. I also learnt quite a few new campfire songs! To top it off, the weather was absolutely glorious. What a great way to spend a couple of day! :)

Sublime Sublimation

Today in Year 4 we were lucky enough to be able to carry out some experiments utilising dry ice. The children were in awe of the process of sublimation (a change of state from solid to gas without going through the intermediate liquid phase as normal ice does). Great science work Owls!

Making Potions!

This week, we’ve had the great opportunity of being able to make our own potions from a wide variety of ingredients. There were some truly hideous looking concoctions out there and I can safely say I would have been happy to consume absolutely NONE of them! However, the children showed a brilliant awareness of joining up all their work on Instruction Writing in English with a keen scientific mind. Some even took inspiration from some of the historic potion recipes we have read and researched about.

Here is a class favourite for all of you from Bald’s Leechbook written during the 9th century! (Anglo-Saxon)

INFECTIONS POTION.

Ingredients - Leek, Garlic, Wine, Cow Bile

Mash up equal quantities of leek and garlic. Mix together with wine and cow bile and leave to stand in a brass bowl for nine days. Smear on the infected area.

YUM! Who needs a trained doctor eh…?!

Potions - Red Cabbage Indicator!

Today we had fun experimenting with red cabbage indicator to check if household substances were acidic or alkaline or neutral.

We went through the rules of treating the classroom like it was a laboratory - including hazard symbols.

It was brilliant making scientific predictions and then noting down our observations as the afternoon progressed. We even started to discuss the relative strength of the substances and a few researched the pH Scale!

We looked for patterns and were able to ensure that we carried out a fair test.

I was super impressed by their enthusiasm and scientific approach to our entire investigation.

A really brilliant afternoon - great work super scientist Owls!

Anaesthetic Facts - Treasure Hunt!

On Wednesday we found facts related to the history of anaesthetic from around the world.

Some of the best facts:

1600BC - Acupunture is recorded to be used in China for pain relief.

In c.1350 the Incans chewed coca leaves with vegetable ash to make a paste that they used to spit into the wounds of patients to relieve pain.

4000BC - The Sumerians are the first opium poppy seeds as anesthetic.

We had fun matching the facts to the years and the countries which they matched to - the big map in the playground was very helpful to some!