Oh my goodness, what a busy week we have had!
On Monday we learnt how some plants reproduce. We planted a sunflower seed, a baby spider plant and researched how to grow potatoes in a pot for the whole school challenge.
On Tuesday, something live joined the classroom – frogspawn! The children learnt about the life cycle of a frog and are looking forward to observing the changes over the next few weeks.
On Wednesday each group made a wormery. We will be able to see how the worms move the earth and help to keep the soil healthy for the plants. All the children enjoyed stomping on the field to simulate rain to fool the worms into coming to the surface. They are now in a cool dark place and we will check on their progress in a few weeks time. We also took samples of soil into a jar, added water and then shook them vigorously. We can already see layers appearing as the mixture settles. In the afternoon we started to build our push/pull toys. Everyone used a hacksaw to cut through the doweling to make an axle and I used a hot glue gun to safely attach their wheels.
On Thursday, Ellie from Shropshire Wildlife Trust came into school and spent the morning with Elm Class. The children planned and prepared an investigation to prove what plants need to survive. They made predictions about what they thought would happen to each group of seeds. After break they foraged for natural materials to make a piece of art based on the Mandalas seen in India. The children were learning about symbiotic relationships where one thing relies on another. For example, trees need CO2 and excrete oxygen, whilst we need oxygen and excrete CO2. One particular child gave the example of a friendship where you give and receive kindness; we all thought this was lovely! In the afternoon we planted five different seeds in the fingers of a clear plastic glove to see which seed germinates first: nasturtiums, radish, mint, basil or lettuce.
Finally, on Friday, we looked at the amount of sugar in different soft drinks and represented this by weighing out the amount of sugar and putting it in a food bag. We were very shocked by some of the outcomes. This highlighted the importance of looking after our teeth by drinking just water in class.
Have a fabulous weekend,
Mrs Dowell, Mrs Armstrong and Miss Pritchard
