Category Archives: Primary 3

Prizewinners’ lunch with Mrs Brown

The winners of the St Nicholas Reading and Writing competitions had a lovely lunch with our Head Teacher, Mrs Brown, today.   They went on a bus to the other end of Broxburn, had a delicious lunch, and were treated to a book of their choice.  Thank you very much to our local partners, Glow Worm Books, for looking after our prizewinners so well and for sponsoring these competitions for us.

And well done again to our fabulous readers and writers.

Eco Vertical Learning Group – Big Schools’ Birdwatch

The Eco Group did the RSPB’s Big Schools’ Birdwatch today, noting the different types of birds that are in the Broxburn area, before we uploaded our results to find the Top 10 birds around St Nicholas.  We then worked to create bird snappers – older pupils working alongside younger pupils.  Thanks to our P7, P6 and P5s who took such good care of our younger St Nicholas children, working with such care, skill and patience.  The snappers were very fiddly to put together but we got there with them. Well done everyone!

 

 

St Nicholas Writing Competition – The Judging Begins

Our Pupil Council began the judging process today, looking at entries for the St Nicholas Writing Competition.  Here they are hard at work reading the entries.  The standard of writing was very, very high.  Winners for the both the reading and the writing competitions will be announced on Friday 11th of January at assembly.   Thanks Pupil Council for your help and giving us your views and insights into what makes a great story.

Busy Little Elves in P3

Last week in Maths we were learning all about symmetry.  We used mirrors to check if a shape was symmetrical and how many lines of symmetry it had.  We discovered that not all shapes are symmetrical and that is called asymmetric.

In Literacy, we were learning about common and proper nouns.  We learned that a proper noun is a little bit fancy and needs a capital letter.  Words such as months of the year, names, places and days of the week are all proper nouns.

We are starting to feel a little festive, so in Art we were given a challenge by our class elf to create a Christmas tree using forks, paint, glitter and paper plates.

 

We have also been exercising our vocal chords and have been practising our Christmas carols in preparation for the Christmas carol concert next week.  We have also been pract

 

ising our dance moves for our Christmas party and have been learning The Square Dance, The Grand Old Duke of York and The Flying Scotsman.

What a busy week we had!

We hope that our class elves leave us some more fun challenges to do this week!

Gymnastics Champs!

Huge congratulations to gymnasts, Abbie Thomson, Anna Keogh and Chloe Laing – members of the St Nicholas Team – who scooped the award of 2nd place in the Scottish Gymnastics Primary Schools Finals in Perth last weekend, where they competed against schools from all over Scotland!  Well done also to Anna Keogh who took the award for 2nd Place for her individual performance.

We are all so proud of you girls – well done to all of  you!

 

 

Talking about learning…

Thanks to everyone who came to our curriculum cafe today to discuss their children’s learning with them over tea and a biscuit.   Our St Nicholas children were very proud to show their families evidence of all their hard work and effort.  Our cafe was very, very busy today – thank goodness our Pupil Council and parent partners were on hand to help.  Thanks also to Avril Fitzpatrick and Agnes Boyle – ladies from the local community who organise our teas and coffees and who we couldn’t do without.

Our next curriculum cafe will be on Friday the 4th of May.

 

Well done and congratulations!

A huge well done and congratulations to St Nicholas Primary School girls who took part in the West Lothian Schools Gymnastics Competition last week at Craigswood Sports Centre, Livingston.  Our Level 3 team came first across the whole of West Lothian and were awarded best individuals too.  All our girls were a credit to themselves, their parents and St Nicholas Primary School.  We are all very proud of your achievements!

Library adventure

Primary 3 were very lucky to have a visit over to Broxburn library to listen to an Egyptian story read by Dianne the librarian.  However, Dianne was in character when we popped over and was dressed as a pharaoh!  She read us a story about Charlie Stinky Socks who was searching for gold in the desert.  He came across different Egyptian things on his travels.  Dianne let us borrow some books to learn even more about Ancient Egypt.  So far we have learned:

Matthew – Ancient Egyptians used a tool called a shaduf to bring water out from the River Nile.

Niamh/Tavia – Pharaoh is what we call their kings and it means house/palace.

Santiago – The most popular drink in Ancient Egyptian times was beer!

Grady – There are wooden boats called ‘felucca’s’ that travel along the Nile.

Zofia – Only boys who had a lot of money got to go to school.

We have loved learning about Ancient Egypt so far and can’t wait to learn more!

Exciting mail

Primary 3 were intrigued when Mrs McGuire asked if she could have a word with them this afternoon. She had received a letter from the National Museum of Scotland saying that they had had a leak and some of their Egyptian artefacts had been damaged.  They were asking if she knew of any children who would be up to the job in helping them out.

Primary 3 were very excited when they realised that she that thought that they were up to the job and they were happy to accept the challenge!

 

P6 request- raffle items

Hi there,

Primary 6 will be staging their performance of the musical “Oliver!” on the afternoon of Monday 19th June and the evening of Tuesday 20th June. Tickets will be offered to parents of classes other than Primary 6 next Tuesday. We are hoping to raise some money for school funds.

We would like to draw a raffle after our Oliver Twist Show on Tuesday 20th June. We will have a children’s hamper filled with sweets/chocolates and an adults’ hamper filled with pamper items, food items, wine, etc.

We would be grateful for any donations of these items. Please give these to your child so they can hand them to the P6 teachers. If you would like to donate any bottles, please hand these in in person to the school office (marked for P6 raffle).

Thank you for all your support!

Kind regards,

Primary 6 staff

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Hooray for the Galaday!

Our last winning float ! First Prize !

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We are really looking forward to entering a float for Broxburn ‘s Galaday,  ( Saturday, 26th of August) . This year’s theme is ‘Gaming/Board Games’. Having put a few options to the vote in each class we have a clear winner , ( all will be revealed very soon !).

We are looking for :

Emulsion paint of any colour.

If you can help with this please contact the office and ask for Mrs Macdonald/ Mrs Evans. Alternatively, Mrs Swinney, Mrs Skeldon or Mrs Neilson should be contacted.  These ladies have very kindly volunteered to be the parent representatives on our school’s ‘Galaday Committee.

As always, we will be needing children to sit on the float and lots of walkers to accompany our float. Your child will receive a letter in the next day with more details. If you wish your child to be involved in any way, please return the slip before the cut off date.

Primary 3 breathe easy!

As part of our Health and Wellbeing, Primary 3 have been learning about different strategies that we can use to help us deal with our worries.  We were very lucky to have a visit from Ellie’s Auntie Trish who is a mindfulness instructor. She showed us how to breathe properly and gave us a couple of strategies to use when we are feeling particularly worried about something. We know that there are lots of people we can talk to and that a problem shared is a problem halved!

Maths outdoors for Primary 3

Primary 3 were keen to take advantage of the sunny weather and take their maths learning outdoors!  We have been learning to add and subtract 2 digit numbers using different strategies.  These include empty number lines and using the 100 square to find the correct path.  Outside, we were chalking empty number lines on the path, we were making 100 squares and we were using string to make empty number lines for us to jump through.  By doing this, we got some fresh air and sunshine whilst learning! Here are some photographs of us in action.

Eco Team aka Park Designers.

Today, some of our Eco Team met with Christine Lee from Sutcliffe Play as a new park is going to be built in the Badger’s Brook area of Broxburn. She gave us free reign to design what we think the park should look like.   As you can imagine, this was very exciting, after all, it is not every day that you get to do this.

To do this, we worked  in groups to choose themes for the park.  Popular themes included, animals, the zoo and nature.  We drew a plan of the park and then used our imaginations to draw what we think the park should look like. Our designs are fantastic !  Christine will now take these away and will choose the best parts from each in her final design. We will keep you all posted as to what the park will look like when we see the final plan.

 

 

Super science!

Primary 3 have been enjoying learning about ‘Freezing and Melting’ and the changing state of water. We had a great time trying to find the quickest method to melt an ice cube, although our hands got a bit chilly and wet! We tried blowing on it, rubbing it in our hands and trying to break it up with a pencil.  We found that putting it by the heater and running it under warm water melted the ice cube the fastest. We then used magnifying glasses to look really closely at ice and saw lots of shapes and bubbles inside.

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Naughty Rudey!

 

img_7912Mrs Brown was shocked to discover that she had two very sneaky visitors in her office last night! The two Rudey’s,the P3 elves, took photos sitting at her desk, swinging from her lights and hanging from her door knob! They then put the photos on Mrs Dymock and Miss McKeown’s desktop! They need to learn good behaviour from us as Santa won’t be impressed!

It’s Almost Christmas!

The whole school is buzzing in the lead up to Christmas. The trees are up, classrooms are decorated, and there’s lots of elves keeping an eye on the classrooms!

We have a few more exciting things planned before the holidays though!

Friday 9th December – Dress Down Day

The children are invited to come to school dressed in their home clothes (or Christmas clothes if they like). Please can each child bring £1 if they are dressing down?

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Wednesday 14th December – Christmas Jumper Day

This year the school is joining in with the national event, raising money for Save The Children. The children (and staff) are invited to wear a Christmas jumper on this day. If you don’t have one, don’t worry! You can  just jazz up a normal jumper with tinsel, or safety pin baubles on. There are lots of ideas online. Please can each child donate £1 on this day if they are dressing up. It is for such a great cause. If you would like to read more about it, please go to www.christmasjumperday.org.

Thank you for your support!

40th Jubilee Mass and Walk Down Memory Lane

On Friday the community took part in our 40th Jubilee Mass and following that, there was a reception with a chance to view old St Nicholas memorabilia.  St Nicholas staff and friends of the school from the past mingled with the new, and a great time was had by all.

Many thanks to the parish of SS John Cantius and Nicholas for gifting the school with a beautiful new chalice to celebrate this important occasion.

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Happy 40th Jubilee St.Nicholas Primary!

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We would like to say a huge CONGRATULATIONS to all the pupils of St.Nicholas! I am sure you will agree they were absolutely fantastic and put on an amazing concert.

Saoirse- “We were effective contributors because everyone joined in, sang out loud and were so happy to be performing for our community”.

Rosie- “We were successful learners because we worked so hard and we didn’t give up! We also learned so much about the 4 decades of our school!”

Fraser- “We were confident individuals because we were showing our talents and if we made a mistake, we continued to perform really well!”

Grace- “We were responsible citizens because we had the responsibility to learn different pieces of music really well, we had to help others, remember our parts and get ourselves organised!”

We would like to say a HUGE THANK YOU to every single person who helped to make our concert so successful.

Our highlights:

  • The face paints and the songs! And the whole thing because I really liked other classes’ songs and costumes.   – Blake
  • I liked the P7’s Bring it all back to you because it was really loud and I liked the slideshow. Also, the P7 narrators were excellent and P7 really organised the whole thing!        -Alex
  • Being able to dress up as people from different decades and I thought it was really nice that some of the girls did highland dancing.  – Abbie
  • Everyone got to participate even though they might have been a wee bit shy, they still did really well!              -Natasha
  • I liked it when the parents started clapping, I think they really enjoyed it!                                                                -Karolina
  • The primary 1 and 2 children did so well especially since they are so little! The signing was really amazing.   -Shaelyn
  • I actually really liked the primary 3 children. Their dance was great!                                                                          -John
  • I liked the primary 5 children because I loved the guitars, saxophones, keyboard and the rap!                    -Ehlana
  • I really liked the way Primary 4 organised their song because there were so many of them and their song was amazing and cheerful! -Piotr

 

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Busy Week!!

St Nicholas are very excited for their super busy week next week for the opening of the new hall and our Jubilee concert.

Today we had some rehearsals, and everyone sounds amazing!

If possible, please could everyone have a last practice of their song (they know what they are doing) and the Welcome Song (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Waxw4GB5K38) , over the weekend.

Also, just a reminder that we would please like all children to come to school wearing a white shirt and their school tie on Monday, Wednesday and Friday of next week.

Thank you in advance, and hope you have a lovely weekend.

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Hibernian Persevere Tour

We had a motivational visit from Hibernian Football Club today to speak about how perseverance helped them to win the Scottish Cup. We know that the word ‘Persevere’ is a verb which means “to continue… even in the face of difficulty.”  Learning can be tricky at times, but with all the work we have done around growth mindsets, we know that mistakes show us where we need to improve and can lead to deeper learning.

We also saw the Scottish Cup and, those children who wanted to, got our pictures taken with it.

Many thanks to Hibernian Football Club staff for coming to see us today!


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Primary 3 Update

We have been very busy in P3 this week!

 

Things that we enjoyed doing this week:

Neve- I enjoyed finding out about the sun and the moon and making a day and night picture.

Emily – I really enjoyed learning the next joined up letters in handwriting, they were n  and m.

Aaron- I really liked performing the assembly with all of my friends.

 

Things we found tricky this week:

 

Justin- I found the division sums quite difficult this week.

Paula- I found it tricky trying to remember what animals come out at night and what ones come out during the day.

Bella-Rose- I found it tricky working on my fluency in reading because there were some words I had to sound out.

 

Things we would like to learn about next week:

Sam: Next week I would like to learn about where the sun and moon came from.

Mirin- I would like to find out how much big things like boxes weigh.

Ronan-I would like to find out how the sun and the moon give light to earth.

 

We have been practising really hard in class for our 80’s dance in the jubilee concert, can we please remind you to bring in costumes by Friday the 25th to allow us to have a dress rehearsal.

 

It’s our 40th birthday!

40th-birthdayAnd to celebrate we’d like to invite all parents and friends of St Nicholas to come to our Jubilee Celebration on Wednesday the 30th of November at 1.30pm.  The children will sing a variety of songs from the decades that show St Nicholas’ journey from 1976 to the present day. To see your invitation click below:

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Primary 3 weekly update

We have been very busy in primary 3 this week and have started to prepare for our class assembly on Friday 11th of November. Our assembly will be about friendship and forgiveness.

 

Things we have learned this week :

 

“I have been learning more about my times tables” – Paula

” I have been learning about miming in drama and went on a walk through the rainforest” – Kamaren

“I have learned how to type capital letters in ICT” – Tatenda

 

Things we have found tricky this week:

” I found the 3 and 4 times tables a bit tricky this week” – Emily

” I found logging on and finding the website on the computer a bit difficult this week” – Finn

“I found the joined up letter f really hard to do in handwriting this week” – Max

 

Things we would like to find out about next week:

 

” I would like to move on to the next letter in handwriting” – Marcel

“I would like to learn how to search for  website” – Cameron

” I would like to learn about different saints in RE” – Neve

 

We are all looking forward to dressing up in our costumes tomorrow for halloween!

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St Nicholas is celebrating Halloween…

on Friday the 28th of October.  St Nicholas pupils can, if they wish, take part in the traditional Scottish activity of ‘guising’ for Halloween on Friday of this week.  Mums and dads, please be sensible and make sure that costumes aren’t too frightening – we don’t want our younger children to be scared.  Thank you.

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P3 Weekly Update

Maths-

In maths we have been learning about money.

I enjoyed playing the purse game with the money” – Cerys p3b

I enjoyed playing the piggy bank game on the netbooks” – Ronan p3a

I found it tricky writing amounts and deciding to use the pence sign or the pound sign” -Ciaran P3b

I found it tricky in number talks to find the most efficient strategy to find the answer” – Justin p3a

 

Literacy

In literacy this week we have been learning lots of different things.

 

This week I learned that you can find lots of words in the dictionary and what they mean” – Alexander P3b

I enjoyed practising our joined up writing” – Hannah P3a

I found it tricky to pick a character for my story this week“- Marcel P3a

I found it tricky finding words in the dictionary” – Harry P3b

 

This week we also went to church for mass. After mass Daniel (trainee priest) came into our class and told us all about St. Francis of Assisi because it was his feast day.

WOW we have been super busy this week and are ready for a restful weekend to recharge our batteries.

 

 

Fantastic Mr Fox!

We’re all just back from a fantastic afternoon, watching a travelling theatre company perform ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’.  In celebration of one of our children’s favourite authors, Roald Dahl, all our boys and girls from Nursery to P7, watched the production.  At St Nicholas Primary, we love Roald Dahl because there are always morals in his stories and great characterisation, making them suitable for young and old.

P3 Champions

Primary 3A and B had a busy weekend receiving medals.

Well done to Isla, Rebecca, Lilya and Melanie for taking part in a gymnastics competition at the weekend.

Well done to Callum, Luke and Warren for taking part in a football tournament at the weekend.

Also, congratulations to Monde-Jnr for going to London on Friday and receiving sponsorship from the High Commissioner to continue with his passion in motor sports.

Well done to all children! We are very proud of you.

‘Boney’ the skeleton

Look at all the amazing facts we have learned about the skeleton today! #successfullearners

The longest bone in your body is the femur. Maisie

Adults have 206 bones! Laura

Your skull is smooth. Ethan

Your rib cage protects your lungs and heart. Ellie

The stirrup is in your ear and it is the smallest bone in your body. Milo D

When you are a baby you have 300 bones. When you get older some of them join together. Marwa

Your skull protects your brain. Niamh

If you didn’t have bones your skin would fall down. Summer

The pelvis is the biggest bone in your body. Megan

Your spine connects to the back of your brain. Ethan

33 little bones make up your spine. Stephen

Fish and milk help you to have strong bones. Casper

Milk gives us Calcium and fish gives us Vitamin D. Megan

Sunlight gives us strong bones. Milo M

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Medals everywhere!

Primary 3A have been busy during the holidays.

– Well done to Rebecca for receiving this medal and certificate for Highland dancing before the Easter holidays.

– Well done to Maisie for receiving this medal for coming first in a skiing race in Italy during the Easter holidays.

– Well done to Harris for receiving this medal for competing in a duathlon during the Easter holidays.

– Well done to Monde-Jnr for receiving this trophy for coming first in a go-karting time trial.

We are all very proud of our class mates.

TALENT SHOW 2016

WOW! We are so lucky to have a school full of amazing, kind, helpful and talented children in our school! Today some of them took to the stage to showcase their talents at the annual Saint Nicholas Has Got Talent event!

The staff and pupils were blown away by wonderful singing, dancing, gymnastics and taekwondo! Everyone was laughing at the wonderful jokes!

To end the show there was a special surprise as some of the teachers took to the stage to perform! We had been practicing all week after school!

Hope you all had a good time! Enjoy the holidays everyone!

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DANCEMARATHON!

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Here are some photos from our Dance Marathon yesterday!

We all had a wonderful time and hopefully raised lots of money for our Lenten Appeal!

5, 2 or 1 hour of non stop dancing can be pretty challenging! Well done everyone!

A special THANK YOU to the dance leaders from St Margarets Academy for running a session with us, and the girls from JHM who taught everyone an amazing dance!

Highlights were definitely the class dance off, lip sync battle and best dancer competition!

Remember to bring in your sponsor money by FRIDAY!

Canal walk

Today Primary 3 and 3/2 went for a walk along the Union Canal. We looked for lots of different things. Here are some facts we found out about the canal.

We saw the canal getting wider for the boats to turn. Isla M

We saw swans along the canal swimming and gliding. Grace

I saw the swans making a love heart with their necks and heads. Hubert

The number of the bridge was 27. Maisie

We saw the shale bings. Ben

In the canal there was rubbish including a football, bottles, bicycle wheel, and other food wrappers and a bike. Callum

We saw a weather vane on top of Broxburn Primary. Rebecca

Lots of branches had fallen in the canal. Zac

We saw a ginger cat laying at the side of the canal. Ruby

The water in the canal was rippling. Ciaran

There was mooring point to tie boats up along the side of the canal.

The port was called Port Buchan. Luke There are also lots of reeds in the water.

Book Week Update.

Today was a super day with lots of great things happening.  What did we do ?

Lots of classes completed their book themed  wall/classroom door.

We brought in books to swap with a friend in our class.  We all went home with a new book.

A different teacher read a story to us.

P5 played ‘Book Cluedo’.  We now have an idea who took Mrs Brown’s books ! All will be revealed tomorrow.

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Book Week Update

 

We have been having a fantastic week this week, celebrating book week.

We have been engaging in lots of activities all week, and still have plenty to go.

This week we have been enjoying lots of paired reading (reading to others in the school). Primary 1 particularly enjoyed the primary 7 boys and girls reading to them.

Primary 4-7 have been going on a ‘Cluedo Quest’. Someone stole all the books from Mrs Brown’s office! They have been answering clues, leading them all around the school, to help them work out who did it!

We have been receiving some amazingly creative photos for our Extreme Reading competition. They are all on display in the gym hall. We have had children reading whilst hula hooping; upside down; in the dogs bed; on the moon; standing on top of a giant peach; on a horse; in a tree and many more!

Our teachers have been challenging us this week as well. There is a display in the gym hall, with lots of teachers hiding behind their favourite books. It is really tricky to work out who is who!

We have all been working as a class to create an imaginative display based on a favourite book, or a number of favourite books.  We can’t wait to see which class wins this competition on Friday.

 

We still have many more activities to do as well!

Tomorrow (Thursday) we are participating in a book swap in the classes. Every child has been asked to bring in a book they no longer want, or read, and it will be swapped with someone else, meaning we all go home with a new book to enjoy.

Also tomorrow our teachers are all swapping classes to read a story to another class.

But the thing we are most looking forward to is the chance to dress up as our favourite book character on Friday (Nursery is on Thursday)! We have been discussing costumes all week. There is a prize for the most imaginative costume from each year group.

Keep checking back for more updates!

 

 

4 times table!

This week Primary 3 have been learning about the 4 times table. We have played lots of games and completed lots of active tasks to build our knowledge of this times table. Look at us in action!

Grace – In the 4 time table all the answers are even.
Luke – The 4 times table is double the 2 times table.
Monde-Jnr – If the times number is odd, the answer is still even.
Beth – Each time you add on 4.
Freya – We can draw arrays, show groupings and repeated addition sums for each sum.
Isla G – I learned that if you double the answers in the 2 times table you get the answer in the 4 times table.

Our Local area

Primary 3 and 3/2 are learning about Our Local Area this term as part of our school topic on Scotland.

This week for homework we interviewed our mum and dads about why they chose to live in this area. We found out that some of them chose to live here because it is a nice area, it is quiet, its very green, houses are cheaper than in Edinburgh so they could buy bigger houses and a lot of our families live here. Some families have lived here for over 20 years and others are new to the area.

Next week, we are going for a walk along Broxburn main street to look at the different shops and buildings we can see. We are then going to build Broxburn in our area. Please make sure you have a water proof jacket for our walk on Monday. If you have any old cardboard boxes could you please bring them into school to help us to build our 3D model of Broxburn. Thank you.

We will post photographs of our model when we are finished it. We can’t wait to start this next week.

Dissolving Experiment

This afternoon P3 conducted an experiment to find out what dissolves in water and what does not dissolve. Dissolving means that when it is mixed with water it disappears.

We got cups of hot water and lots of different things to test. We tested : sugar, coffee, sand, flour, tea, salt, bath salts, gray granules, chalk and bicarbonate of soda.

We predicted whether each item would dissolve or not dissolve by putting our thumbs up or down.

We also gave the water a stir when we put the item into the water. This helped some of them to dissolve.

This is a list of the things that did dissolve: bicarbonate of soda, sugar, salt, coffee, flour, bath salts and gravy.

We found out that the gravy granules only dissolved in boiling water.

This is a list of the things that did not dissolve: tea, sand and chalk.

We also found out that some of the things changed the colour of the water but did not dissolve, like tea.

 

Ice Experiment

Today Primary 3A and B completed an experiment to see how to melt ice the quickest way using our bodies. We made a prediction about how fast we thought we could melt it and the best method of melting it.

We tried to rub it between our hands, left it on the table, crushed the ice in our hands, heat it with our breath and used our sleeve to melt it.

We discovered the best way to melt the ice was to try and heat it with our hands or breath.

In primary 3B the fastest person to melt the ice was Emily in 1 minute 54 seconds. In primary 3A Robbie melted it 1 minute 40 seconds.

We know that when ice melts it turns back into water.

Here are some pictures of us in action.

After we melted the ice we all had cold hands and then completed a science report.