The learning outcomes for our next topic are that we  can use a range of instruments to measure and record weather. Along with this, we will discuss how weather affects our lives. The skills that we will work on are to do with how we interact with each other. We will take time to discuss how to work well in a group or with a partner and we will get to practise this in lots of different situations.

Mrs Cameron gave us some photos to look at but didn’t tell us what they were of. We had a look and a think. On post-its, we wrote what we saw, what we thought they might be or do and what we wondered about them. After that we talked in groups about what we already knew about how to measure weather and what we’d like to learn and do in our topic. It turns out we know quite a lot of different weathers but we don’t know how to measure many of them. Bhavika knew that you could measure how hot or cold the weather is and Laith thought that if we went to the top of a hill, we could measure the weather better than if we stayed in the town. Questions were asked about how we could measure things that we couldn’t see, like wind so as the term goes on, hopefully we’ll come up with some answers.

On the Thursday before our October Week holiday, we were lucky enough to be able to visit Calderglen Park for a class trip. Our topic in Term 1 had been all about Rights and we concentrated on animals. When we went to Calderglen we had a good look at all the animals and had a think about where they were kept, versus how they would live in the wild. We’d already talked about it in our class and most of us feel really, that wild animals should be in the wild to make sure they get all their needs met. We still enjoyed looking at animals that we hadn’t seen before and we saw that they were very well looked after so even though they weren’t in the wild, the staff at Calderglen were trying very hard to meet all the animals’ needs.

The best bit of our day was definitely when we went to the big play park. Mrs Cameron had told us to wear clothes that were ok to get dirty and she was right, we got very dirty! We got wet, we got dirty, we climbed up, we swung, we spun, some of us fell over and we had a brilliant time. Everyone looked happy all day and everyone was beautifully behaved all day. All in all, we had a very successful trip.

Today we had a visit from Colin, who is a zoologist. Colin had lots of interesting activities planned for us to help us think more about our topic, animals and their rights.

He showed us pictures of different mammals and then we went outside to try to work out how large these animals were in comparison to us. It turns out that a blue whale is about 30M long and if we all stand in a line, holding hands, including Colin, Ms Reid and Mrs Cameron, we are just about the same length as 1 blue whale. If we all stand together in a bunch, we would all fit inside a the mouth of a blue whale. If we were inside it’s mouth, we wouldn’t have to worry because they don’t eat children and they don’t actually even have proper teeth. Colin told us that they don’t have to chew food so they don’t have real teeth!

Cheetahs can run at 70mph and we all had a go at running to see if we could go as fast as a cheetah, or at least to see which animal we can run as fast as. We timed each other running across the playground and compared ourselves to different animals. We were all faster than a 3 toed sloth and a hedgehog. Most of us were not as fast as a pig but Walter was actually a bit faster than a pig. None of us were as fast as a squirrel but that was the one that most of us were close to. Maybe if we keep training, we could win a race with a squirrel?

Colin told us about Orca’s and how they like to live in big family groups. We measured 10M along the playground, which is roughly the size of an Orca and then had a think about what size of tank you would need if you wanted to keep an Orca in a zoo. We talked about its size, how far they liked to swim and that they really only are happy if they are with a group. We thought about all of this and then Mrs Cameron asked us to vote on whether we thought it was fair to keep Orcas in zoos. Most of us voted for definitely not fair and the rest of us were not sure. No one thought it was fair to keep Orcas in zoos. Zoha explained that she voted for not fair because she knew Orcas needed lots and lots of space to swim and have friends and no zoo could really be big enough to let that happen. Later this week we are going to think about this question, with regard to other animals that are kept in zoos and come up with ideas on what we would have to provide the animals with to make sure they got their rights.