Sound work in Science in Year 4

Today we have been learning about sound: how it is made and how it travels.

Today we designed and carried out an experiment to find out which material made the egg shaker silent with the least number of layers.

Here are our wrapped up egg shakers. 

Can you tell the materials we used?

We used (top row l-r) brown paper, fabric (socks), tin foil; (front row l-r) paper towels, tissue paper and bubble wrap.

Many people predicted the tin foil would have the least layers because you can wrap it really tight and it doesn't have holes in. But actually it made the metal egg shaker just as loud. Our experiment showed that the brown paper had the least number of layers - 7 - and we thought perhaps that is why is is used for wrapping items to post.

Everyone enjoyed this experiment and we are going to explore pitch next week in science.

Growing Galore!

Here in Recpetion we’ve had a lovely day planting potatoes! The children carefully filled the bags with soil, planted the seed potatoes, covered in soil and watered them. Let’s hope the children remember to water them everyday and soon we will have some yummy potatoes to cook! This has inspired us to see if we can bring our broccoli plants back to life too.

Reception are Scientists!

Last week the children loved engaging in lots of experiments for science week. We followed the children’s interests to predict what would happen, carry out experiments and evaluate our ideas after. We kept celery in coloured water to see how it changed colour, we explored potion making and did the skittles challenge. One of the children said “I think the water is going to turn a different colour and the skittle will all go white” - what a great prediction! This week this children are carrying on by exploring different materials and magnets. Come and ask us what we find out!

Safer Internet Day in 4C

Tuesday 5th February was Safer Internet Day. 

In 4C we had a class discussion about how we need to give and receive permission for many things online, at home and at school.

We also tried an exercise where we had to draw first an apple, then a dog, then the internet. We found out that the apples looked very similar. The dogs all had 4 legs and a tail, but didn't all look as similar as the apples. These are both real objects. Then we tried to draw the internet. A lot of people had a screen and the word Google, but every one was different. Mrs Williams took a photo of our drawings of each but the iPad would not let her upload them to this blog post!

 After that, we looked at different scenarios such as being asked to play a game with a 12+ rating and we discussed what we would do. 

We read through the Shirley Warren E-Safety Charter and agreed we would follow it.

Brilliant bones!

Here in reception the children have shown a big interest in their bodies. We have been talking about our veins, hearts and skeletons. We have provided lots of activities to help the children support their fascination and look at what great work they are doing!

We support Water Aid

Earlier in the year, Tony from Water Aid came to speak to Green Council about how many people around the world don't have enough water to stay healthy. he challenged us to raise money for Water Aid.  we asked Costco to donate some cups so we could fill them with water and make some money but instead they gave us a cheque for £50 for Water Aid.

Last week, Tony came in to be presented with the cheque. He had the opportunity to share more about Water Aid with every class in Key Stage 2, so we all have more awareness of Global Issues around water.

Here is the cheque Costco sent.

Clean Air at Shirley Warren

Today, Jean MacGrory from My Journey at Hampshire County Council came to talk to us about Clean Air at Shirley Warren.

We learnt that pollution is bad for the environment, for example by factories and burning fossil fuels.  Southampton is in the top 5 worst cities in the UK for pollution.
Cars are one of the worst way in which our city is polluted.
We found out that we can do things like walk or cycle to school and have plants around the house.
We need to share with our families that we need to be thinking about using our cars less if possible.
Jean told us all about Clean Air Day on 21st of June. It's a Thursday but you could go after school and there are things for children to do until 7pm.

She also left leaflets with clean air advice, including a new app to help asthma and people with breathing problems find out what their air quality is like.

If you have any thoughts or ideas about Clean Air and how we can help, you can ask Mrs Williams, the Green Council leader.

Water Aid Speaker comes to Green Council

Today Tony Ridley come to speak to Green Council about Water Aid.

Mrs Williams made notes so that the Green Council reps can share with their classes the information he gave. This blog is a good way of sharing information.

Tony worked for HSBC and they supported the Water Aid charity and let him talk about it to local groups. He is now retired, but still does talks for Water Aid. He told us:
* 884 million (that's 884,000,000) people had no access to safe water in 2011, the figure now is only 650 million!
* Children often get diseases and may miss school as they have to get water.
*900 children under 5 die every day from very very bad tummy bugs.
* You can only go 3 days without water.
* In the UK people use on average 150 litres a day. In Africa they use 10 litres a day.
* 2.3 billion (that's 2,300,000,000) people don't have access to a toilet. That's about 30% of the world.
* Water Aid works with local people to provide sustainable solutions.  Here is a picture of some of the things they do.


We are going to raise some money for Water Aid charity and will make plans for that at our next Green Council meeting.

Celebrating All Different, All Equal - Anti Bullying week at Shirley Warren

Last week saw the annual nationwide focus on Anti-Bullying which many schools take part in.

In our school we invited parents in to help update our anti-bullying charter and to see the activities we were doing to help share the message, "All Different, All Equal".

We asked all children to draw round their hands and on one side write or draw what they felt was different about them and on the other side what was the same as others.

Green Council made some examples to show the school what to do and here are their hands.

We were so pleased that so many parents could join us and we are pleased that our children understand that although everyone is different, we all have equal rights.

Rain in Reception

We have had a great few weeks settling into school life in Reception. The children started full time this week and today we had our first rainy day! We really made the most of it by exploring how the texture of our mud had changed and how we could move down the slide as the water made it super slippy and fun! We are looking forward to the next couple of weeks where we will continue to investigate our new environment.

We're supporting Send My Friend To School!

Last week our whole school took part in 2017's Send My Friend to School initiative.

One Year 6 student said, "We had the outline of a school and then we had 5 jigsaw spaces on the school and we had about 10 jigsaw puzzle pieces and we had to think which 5 were the most important.  For example I put equality for both sexes and I put toilets and I put school lunches, I put trained teachers and books.

It was hard to choose because they were all really important. There was soap, sinks and hygienic classrooms, but I think those were the most important.

We coloured them in and we wrote what was most important about education and then our MP Alan Whitehead came in and we gave him our Send My Friend jigsaws. He kept them to take to London to tell the other MP's about it. We hope to achieve that all schools - even if they're not in England - have all of those things."

Growth in Reception

In Year R we are learning about growth and change. We are very excited to be able to watch this for ourselves with our caterpillars. We received them last week and they have already been eating and growing. We have been learning about the life cycle of a butterfly and can't wait to find our first cocoon.

Teddy Bears Hospital in RS

Today we were visited by the 'teddy doctors' who helped us make our fluffy friends better. They also taught us about how to stay safe around the house, what to eat to stay healthy and different body parts. We used different medical equipment like a stethoscope and blood pressure    monitor, which don't seem so scary any more. We also tried to remember these big words, which seemed tricky at times, but we will practise them.

Missing Reindeer

Exciting news were received by Reception children: Santa had lost his reindeer and asked the children to help find them. The adventure began! We researched information about reindeer using child friendly websites, made a carrot trail and a sledge to attract them. We also wrote posters to let the school know about the news and guess what? The reindeer spotted the posters and realised that Santa was missing them. We saved Christmas!

Good bye butterflies

We have now released our 5 butterflies. We really enjoyed watching them grow from tiny little caterpillars to beautiful butterflies, but now they are ready for they new adventures under the sky. Our butterflies inspired us with our learning, too (check out our lovely writing in our 'Wow book'). Farewell butterflies.

Caterpillar update

Yesterday while we were busy learning our first caterpillar made its cocoon! We now have two more who are hanging ready to make their cocoons and we are excited to keep an eye on them all day today to see the changes. We just have one cheeky caterpillar who is still trying to disturb the others so we hope it doesn't carry on today as it is making the other caterpillars do a funny wiggle as they think they are in danger! 

Winchester Science Centre

On Friday Reception had a brilliant trip to the Science Centre! They behaved perfectly on their first school trip and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. We had a very busy day starting with looking at all the exhibits, exploring what we could do and talking about how things worked. We then had a short play in the sunshine before lunch. After lunch we went to the planetarium and watched a show about the planets. We loved the experience so much! We also learnt a lot about the different planets in our solar system. We then had another explore before it was time to come home. This week we will be writing and talking about the trip and what we liked best. Take a look at some of our pictures.

Caterpillars

In reception we had a very special delivery today! We have got some lovely caterpillars to keep in our classes. We will be watching them everyday to see how they are changing and we are already excited for the butterflies. We have been researching butterflies and deciding names that we may like to call them when they hatch. We will keep you updated on their progress! 

Space Explorers

Over the Easter break we had something very exciting happen down in Reception. We came back to find a spaceship in our classroom! We will now be learning about space and the children have begun the week brilliantly showing lots of fascination around the planets and space travel. We are really looking forward to the next weeks of learning! 

World Water Day 2016

Today Shirley Warren Primary School helped to celebrate the 23rd United Nations World Water Day.

We started off with a very interesting assembly from Ashleigh from Southern Water who challenged us to think about where we could save water.

We then heard from Stella Typhoon (Mrs Bullas) and Aqua Lakes (Mrs Williams) who were hosting Shirley Warren News, about water around the world.  But they kept getting crackly screens! There were no reports!  So every year group found out about an aspect of water during the day. Here are some games from Year 3.

From Environmental Health correspondents to Weather Reports via songs and lots of practical activities, Shirley Warren News was finally aired at the end of the day.

Then we saw some photos of our link school, Tukela, in Zambia.  They need to raise money for flushing toilets.  Maybe you can just about see "boys" on the left and "girls" on the right on the corrugated doors in the picture. Can you see any water nearby?

As we have just had Sports Relief we are going to fund raise next term but we need your ideas for interesting ways we can raise money.  Please tell your Green Council rep any ideas you have.

Mrs Williams