Month: September 2019

On Friday we split into 8 groups with 3 or 4 people in them. We each had a different climate zone to focus on: Polar, Temperate, Tropical and Arid. 4 groups focused on BEFORE climate change and 4 focused on DURING climate change. We were drawing pictures as a plan to get ideas and sharing them with our groups. We decided on what ideas we would use and wrote down each person’s role in the group. For example; some people have the job of making mountains out of white clay or playdough, other people have chosen to create sand out of cotton wool dipped in yellow paint and some other roles include; making birds out of cardboard and using brown clay to create logs to represent deforestation.

This week in Art we were drawing endangered animals and we coloured them in using the Pointillism technique. We used coloured dots and spaced them close together to show areas that are darker. We focused on tone to show areas that are lighter and darker.  Some examples of animals that we drew were turtles, cheetahs, dolphins, polar bears and snow leopards.

 

In Science we were planting seeds in sand and soil and some people planted theirs in a light area and the other half of the class were planting theirs in the dark. The aim was to see if the plants would grow in the light or dark better.  We were also trying to discover if the plants will grow in the different conditions of sand and of soil.  We are going to water the plants each day using a cup with a marker on it to show how much water to add in so that the experiment is fair.

 

In Numeracy we did a problem where 8 people stood in a circle and said a number in order from 1 up to 13.  Whoever says number 13 goes back to their seat and it continues as the next person starts from 1 again.  You have to go round the circle clockwise.  The problem was that you could make yourself win every time but we had to work out how this was happening.  We worked out that to get the same person to win every time they had to stand 2 people away from the person starting the game, anti-clockwise.

 

In Social Studies, we were learning animal adaptations and how some animals change the way they live or what they do to suit their environment. We learned that the desert tortoise adapts to live in the desert by trying to get water from what it eats. A camel takes a sip of water every 7 hours and has 2 lumps on its back.  We thought that the lumps were to store water but it’s actually to store fat.  Camels can actually last a week or more without water.  They also have hair inside their ears to stop the sand from being blown in their ears.  Penguins have black feathers to absorb the heat from the sun.

 

We’ve had a busy week in P4a! Here are some of the things that we’ve been doing…

“I’ve learned about the polar climate. Sometimes it ends up being minus 55 degrees!” (Harry Jefferson)

“We’ve learned about Venn diagrams, Carroll diagram and bar charts. We decided what we wanted to vote for and I chose animals.” (Ben Fishlock)

“We were learning about how to use Carroll diagrams, how we can get the whole class in separate groups. We chose boys and girls and lighter and darker hair. We went outside and went into groups and had to figure out so that everyone in the class had a space in our Carroll diagram.” (Jessica Urquhart)

“In PE we were playing Tail Take. It’s where you put a bib into your shirt and run around and try and snatch the bib off people and when the person blows the whistle you come in and see how many bibs you’ve got.” (Bruce McLellan)

“In science we were seeing how plants grow and parts of the flower. We learned about the petals; they make the flower look pretty.” (Emilia Pugh)

Today we were learning to sort animals into a Carroll Diagram under Arid, Polar, Endangered and Non-endangered criteria.  Sand Viper Snakes live in the Arid climate zone and are non-endangered and the Arctic fox lives in the Polar climate zone and is also non-endangered.  One of the Polar endangered animals is the Polar Bear because there’s not that much ice left. An example of an endangered animal in the Arid climate zone is the antelope because they are being hunted.

In French on Thursday we were making a calendar.  We made the calendar so that we could put our birthdays on it and so we could practise the months of the year, days of the week and numbers for the date.  We did a month in pairs or trios and one person designed the ‘month’ page with pictures and the French name for that month whilst the other people in the group completed the calendar.

In Science we have been learning about plants.  We are going to learn about whether plants will grow in sand and soil in the dark and in the light.  Before our experiment next week, we wrote up our hypothesis which is our prediction.  Some of us think that the plant tht is grown in the soil will grow and then decompose quickly in the dark.  Some of us think that the seed in the sand will grow in the light and not decompose initially but will die slowly.