We were delighted to receive a beautiful bouquet of ‘Gryffindor’ roses and a stunning hand made card from Ava Lily and Atticus’ family this morning. These were given as a thank you for our Hogwarts event yesterday.
We are sure you will agree that Ava Lily and Atticus’ uncle, Thomas Nguyen, is indeed a very talented artist.
The message inside made us all smile. Your thoughtfulness and consideration is greatly appreciated by our wee team. It was certainly our pleasure to host the event yesterday. It was hard to tell whether the children, or the grown ups had more fun!
P 4- 7 decided to use air dry modelling clay to shape the Harry Potter Sorting Hats. We used rolling, flattening and shaping to form the hat. We then used a range of tools to imprint the face and wrinkle detail onto our creations.
When they are fully dry we will see if we want to paint and varnish them with P.V.A. glue to seal them.
To get their bodies and minds moving, the children were set a challenge of completing an observational scavenger hunt on two themes.
Luna’s Nature Spotters:
Twig
Leaf
Clover
Pebble
Dobby’s Magical Mysteries:
Sock
Pine Cone
Golden Snitch
Chocolate Frog
There were mad dashes, here there and everywhere as everyone gathered in at least one of each of the above and placed them in our sorting hoops back in school.
The spoils were then divided up equally as a a reward for their physical effort.
Our Potions Masterclass required the children to apply both their chemistry and maths thinking in two experiments.
Polyjuice Potion:
Everyone needed to measure out the correct capacity of liquids and add just the right amount of powder to create a bubbling, effervescent experiment in our mini cauldrons.
25ml of Dragon’s Tears (distilled vinegar)
25ml of Elixir of Life (water)
1 heaped tsp of Powdered Pixie (bicarbonate of soda)
P 1-4 used 25ml cylinders to measure the liquid ingredients. P 4- 7 had an extra challenge of working with different capacity scaled cylinders to add the correct quantities. It was very entertaining watching the cauldrons foam and bubble over.
We chatted about how combining the vinegar (an acid) with the baking soda (a base) results in an entirely new substance – carbon dioxide gas. As this gas quickly forms it creates bubbles.
Levitating Bat Droppings:
To conduct this magical, visual trick, the children had to add bat droppings (small raisins) to Frog’s Urine (lemonade) in a glass. They then had to chant Wingardium Leviosa and watch the droppings rise and fall repeatedly.
We had an interesting discussion as to the cause of this phenomenon. We learned that carbon dioxide gas bubbles in the lemonade attach themselves to the body of the raisin. They act as swimming arm bands, raising the raisin to the surface of the liquid. Once the bubbles burst at the surface of the glass, the raisin sink until new bubbles form on it’s surface area and the process repeats.
We have been learning that the Mandragora is a powerful ingredient in restorative potions. In Harry Potter, the cry of the younger versions of this plant will render the listener unconscious.
We modelled our own mandrakes using two materials – modelling clay (P1-4) and home made play dough (p4-7).
We are sure you will agree that artistic talent abounds in our budding sculptors.
After preparing our marrow yesterday with salt to draw out the moisture, we were ready for the next step in our ‘team chutney’ challenge.
Sian and her neighbour donated a variety of tomatoes. Izzy and Alba brought in apples from their trees at home too. The rest of the ingredients were bought in store.
The boys and girls chopped and prepared the following ingredients and added it to the washed and drained home grown marrow.
Apples
Tomatoes
Plums
Sultanas
Ginger
Malt Vinegar
Demerara Sugar
We applied our maths skills to the task too. We used division to reduce recipe quantities. We also practised weight and capacity to measure dry and wet ingredients by reading scales for quantity. Everything was then mixed together and simmered slowly for several hours to thicken and blend.
We then enjoyed the chutney with a mix of crackers . The children really liked the flavour. There were seconds and even thirds devoured!
After yesterday’s bounty of a massive marrow from our very own vegetable patch, the children thought about ways to make best use of our whopper vegetable. We decided that we’d like to have a go at making marrow chutney. This will teach us about preserving food to avoid food waste.
We all helped at each stage of the preparation process. Some washed and chopped our marrow. Others added salt to draw out moisture from the marrow. They then mixed it all together. We left it for many hours for the salt to do its job.
At every stage, hygiene was maintained, with hand-washing before and after and all equipment carefully washed after use.
Tomorrow, we plan to proceed with stage two of our chutney making challenge, which will be another team effort.
As part of our P4-P7 Health & Wellbeing topic, the children have been engaging in mindfulness and self-awareness activities.
We took care and attention to create a mindfulness rainbow mosaic through collaborative working. The overall effect is beautifully bright and colourful.
We also created self-portraits based on the emotions based cartoon Inside-Out. One half of our faces reflects our outside physical appearance and the other half shows all the things that make us ‘me’ on the inside.
Here is a display of the the children’s lovely work.
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