As a follow up to The Snowman’s Coat Science investigations we decided to do another investigation to explore what happens to water when it is placed in a  freezer.

We found three penguins and checked that they were exactly the same size then we put them in containers that had exactly the same amount of water in them. Mrs Clyde then kindly placed the three containers of penguins in water in her big freezer.

We waited a couple of days and then we checked to find out what had happened. The water had turned to ice and we couldn’t see our penguins anymore.

In the classroom we decided together that we would place one penguin in ice on a tray near the sink, one block of ice was placed into some hot water and the third block of ice was placed on a tray outside in the playground.

Over the next two days we were Scientists and we investigated what was happening to the ice.

Results:

• The penguin in the block of ice that was placed in the hot water was quick to escape. We saw that the hot water very quickly melted the ice and turned it back to water.
• The next block of ice to melt was the ice block that was placed by the sink. We decided that the classroom was warm so that it why it melted before we went home.
• The last block of ice to melt was the one we had placed outside. Overnight it had remained as solid ice and it only melted after there was a very heavy shower of rain. We realised that it had been very cold outside and that is why it took this block of ice so long to melt.

This experiment helped us to understand that water turns to ice when it is very cold. We also learned that ice melts back to water very quickly if it is in a warm place and that it takes much longer to melt back to water if the ice is placed in a very,very  cold place.

Here we are lined up and ready to perform,”It’s a party” our 2015 Nativity. We were dressed up as shepherds. Our teachers were very proud of us and thought we sang beautifully.

We had so much fun doing Scottish dances, playing games and eating our party food. Here we are playing a game and working together really well as a team.

Mrs. Musgrave, Miss Finlayson, Mrs. Collins and all of the boys and girls in Primary One wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

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If a snowman wears a coat in Winter will he:

• Melt quickly?
• Stay the same?
• Melt slowly?

These are the questions we were asked today.

We predicted what we thought would happen to the snowman.  Most of us thought the snowman would melt quickly with his coat on because the coat was warm.  Some of us thought it would stay the same because it was snowing.

Then we did an experiment.  We got two identical snowmen (water frozen in yoghurt cartons) and put them on  trays.  Next we put a sock coat on one of the snowmen and left the other one with no coat.  Finally we looked at the snowmen during the day and watched to see which snowman melted the quickest.

Most of us were surprised at the result because the snowman with the coat stayed upright the longest and the snowman without the coat melted the quickest.  We realised that the coat acted as a protection for the snowman and kept him COLD  – most of us had thought the coat would make him warm and melt him!  We learned that it was okay to change our mind because of what we saw during our experiment – scientists do this all the time!

Primary One have been enjoying the countdown to Christmas and they have been learning a little French at the same time.

They are using an Interactive French Jeanne de la Lune advent calendar in class. This is helping them to learn some numbers in French and how the French language sounds as spoken by a native French speaker.

We enjoy finding out what Rudolph and his friends have been up to each day and we are  having fun learning a second language.

Primary 1 had lots of fun building boats to carry Ernest the explorer across the icy water. We had to choose and test materials to use to make our boats. We then had to predict whether our boats would float. After testing our boats we  sorted them into different groups, ones that floated and ones that did not float. Some of us had to change our design so that Ernest stayed safe and dry!

The children are working very hard learning lots of different songs for the Christmas Nativity.  We hope you enjoy our performance.

P1 were very excited when Mrs Quayle from the Scottish Book Trust brought in ‘Book Bug’ to visit us.  We enjoyed listening to some stories and were very happy when we were given our own bag of books to take home.  A big thank you to the Scottish Book Trust.

We all had a fun Penguin Friday learning about Emperor penguins. We planned our activities for the day with our teachers.

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We were very excited because we received another letter from Ernest. He asked Primary One Explorers for their help.