P4 – 7 spent the morning at our lovely, local beach today as part of our participation in the Rhins Coastal Paths Project. We were joined by Anna Johnson, Countryside Development Office and Elizabeth Tindal.

A further session with Susi Briggs, songwriter, will follow to develop our song writing skills using our session events as a stimulus.

The session began by us going on a beach forage. The children worked in pairs to bring back one object they knew something about and one thing they wanted to find out about. We found and discussed a wide variety of seaweed, crab claws, mermaid’s purses and the like. We learned that seaweed comes in three main colour groups: red, green and brown. We also discovered that some varieties are edible when freshly picked.  There is even a sweet tasting one that was used in a blancmange recipe during WWII rationing.

Next, the boys and girls placed large stones on the edge of the water to see if the tide was coming in or out. Pretty quickly, our rocks were submerged showing an advancing tide.  The children enjoyed a wellie wade whilst we were at it 😉

We learned how to identify male and female crabs by the banding on their outer exoskeletons. We readily found live examples of crabs on the beach to study along with anemones and whelks. The children were fascinated by the rock pool life forms.

The session then moved on to our using story stones to link together a creative and imaginative tale using the images painted on the rocks as features in our story. The children gathered a stone of their liking and decorated it with a picture using acrylic pens. These will be used in a future story telling and song writing session planned for the following week.

As a final activity, everyone gathered two more stones which we studied. We learned how many stones are formed e.g. sedimentary or volcanic. Our stone treasures were used as percussion instruments to produce a musical tune in groups. Different sounds were produced by rubbing surfaces together or tapping the stones together gently or with more pressure for volume.

It was all too quickly time to return to school for our lunch. The children thanked Anna and Elizabeth for a very informative and enjoyable outdoor learning session.

Successful Learners

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.

We hope you like 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.

P4-7 used our Higher Order Thinking Skills to create wands with two methods today.

The children painted and decorated the sticks gathered from our woodland walk on Friday.

In addition, we decided to do a touch of wood working wand making.  We:

• Measured half way on a 60 cm dowling rod
• Sawed the rod in half using a junior hacksaw
• Sanded the ends smooth
• Carefully used a hot glue gun to create handles and patterns on our wands
• Painted and decorated the finished wands

The children independently worked safely and sensibly with equipment.

Independent Learners

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.

Successful Learners

 

 

 

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.

 

 

The Children enjoyed foraging and even spotted a little toad hiding in the undergrowth.

 

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!

Here is our recipe:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/marrow-chutney

Effective Contributors

 

 

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.

Effective Contributors