Category Archives: Science

health and wellbeing, Out and about, Science

P1-Trip to Sensation

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To extend our body learning and find out more about the role of our main organs, we all went on a fun trip to the science centre.

After spending time touring the centre and playing with lots of science exhibits, we then went to a Body Bits learning workshop. It was here that we met Stuffy, the giant rag doll who has a special zip right down his chest. Lots of us got to go and pull out one of Stuffy’s organs to learn more about. We found his stomach, large and small intestines, lungs, liver, kidneys and heart.

Take a look at some of the photos below showing some of our learning experiences at the science centre….

 

cooperative learning, Messy play, Science

P1- My Brain – The Boss of my body

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As part of our learning about the body, we focussed on finding out more about our brains!

We learned that it is rough, wrinkled and looks all squashed because it has to fit into our skull and the skull has the job of providing protection to our brain. If our brain was flat it would be around the size of a whole ironing board and can you imagine the size our head would need to be to hold it!

We worked together to create some plasticine brain models and spoke about the things our brain helps us control and do! We also experimented to design our own protective models to shield and keep our eggs safe to help us to explore and understand the importance of wearing a helmet when riding our bikes or scooters. Look at some of this exciting learning below.

cooperative learning, health and wellbeing, Science, teamwork

P1- Focussing on our sense of smell and taste

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We did a few experiments earlier this week to help us to investigate and learn more about our sense of smell and taste.

We know that we use our nose to smell and that smells can be pleasant or not very nice and our sense of smell is there to help keep us safe and away from danger. We worked in groups to have a sniff of some mystery smells and then tried to guess and describe what it was. We discovered that even without or other senses to help, our sense of smell was quite accurate in determining what it was we were smelling and if it would be something we would want to be close to. The smells were chocolate, ketchup, coffee, onion, vinegar and lemon and we guess them all!

We also investigated our sense of taste and discovered that our tongues are specially designed to identify a range of different flavour groups. In this experiment we had to be good at partner working and show a responsible and respectful attitude to ensure our partner, who could not see what they were tasting, was safe and happy. We tasted 9 things and described and guessed what it was. Again, we were fantastic at this taste testing, getting all 9 identified correctly. The tastes were salt crisps, carrot, blueberries, dark chocolate, pickled onions, raisins, cheese and marshmallows!

Expressive arts, fine motor skills, Messy play, Play to learn, Science

P1- Super sense of touch

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We are learning about our senses and focussed on touch earlier this week in a number of fun play to learn tasks including a mystery object game, an independent ‘textures to touch’ picture which our teacher asked us to explain later and got the opportunity to play in a range of different messy mediums such as spaghetti, icey water, lentils, gloop and mixed playdough! It was a busy learning time but lots of fun too!

Messy play, Science, teamwork

Learning about Water 💦

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In science we have been learning all about water. We learned that planet earth is mostly made of water and that water goes around and around all of the time… it is very important for us and everything else on Earth! We spoke about how we use water and how it can change from a liquid, like the water we drink to a solid and even a gas. We experimented with water and how to change it by the processes of freezing, melting and boiling. We especially enjoyed working in small groups to see if we could melt big chunks of ice and find the secret surprises hidden inside. We used a range of things such as salt and sand and also sticks, stones and magnifying glasses to look closely at the ice. Here we are taking part in this fun experiment…

Next we want to try to make dirty water clean again!

Celebrating success, cooperative learning, fine motor skills, health and wellbeing, Literacy, Play to learn, Science, teamwork

P1- A pumpkin kind of week!

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This week we were all about pumpkins and used these as a context for learning across the curriculum, incorporating literacy, numeracy and maths, science, expressive arts and health and well-being but more importantly we had a lot of fun learning!

In teams we became scientists and took part in a pumpkin investigation using many skills including turn taking, observing, explaining, problem solving, predicting, estimating, measuring, testing and recording our thoughts and findings. We could not believe that pumpkins actually sink despite being quite heavy! This led us into doing a more in depth learning about floating and sinking later in the week.

We used the book Pumpkin Soup to link our learning this week and decided to make some soup just like Duck, Cat and Squirrel in the story. But before we could do this we needed to write some shopping lists and look at lots of different recipes books. We even went into the garden and found some lovely carrots and potatoes to use in our soup! Miss Thompson was so proud of us all and the writing we produced. It was a challenging job but we can do anything we set our mind to in P1! 

Here we are enjoying our soup once and if the hard work chopping, cutting, stirring and cooking had been done.

Another pumpkin learning task we worked hard on was a S.T.E.M challenge in small cooperative groups. The challenge was to design and create a ‘pumpkin platform’ as a group. It had to be as high as we could get it but still steady and strong. Just look at some of the design ideas we had. The highest platform got the pumpkin 16 cubes high off of the floor!

Overall, we loved using pumpkins in lots of our learning and play this week!