Upper-Primary - Ms Kelsey

Science task 4

We started already Thursday last week. We needed a glass pot, a white flower, food colouring and water. We set up our experiment and made predictions on what we thought would happen. We thought that the flower might change colour and we thought that the flower might drink a bit as well. We put our name tag in line with the water line in the pot, to be able to measure any changes. We kept two roses as control flowers, not adding any food colouring to their pot, just to see if there would be a difference.

We made our first observations the day after, on Friday, and most of the roses had started to change colour. They had drunk 0,5 cm of water, we could see the difference.

Today we made our second observation, Monday. The roses had drunk about another centimeter of water, but they looked different! They started to look a bit more sad, some pupils even thought that they looked terrible. We talked about the advantage of roots, that the roots absorb more than water from the soil, that the flowers get nourishment via the roots as well and that it is difficult to provide the same care for the roses when they stand in a little pot.

Can you see the difference? Check the water line first and see if YOU can see that flowers do drink water! And look at the level of happiness too. Don't you think the flowers would have been happier if they still had had their roots?

 

Flowers and insects

 

The big idea...

Have you seen any flowers today? Where did you see them? Have you seen any insects? Where did you see them? Flowers and insects need each other. Without insects there would be no flowers. And without flowers insects would go hungry.

 

In Science, we’ll be finding out:

• Where flowers and insects prefer to live and grow

• How and where seeds grow

• Observational experiments to discover how plants use water and light

• About the life cycles of insects

• About ants and bees

 

 

In Geography, we’ll be finding out:

• About the migration of the Monarch butterfly

 

 

In Art, we’ll be finding out:

• About paintings of flowers and insects

• How to make paintings and models of flowers and insects

• How to use symmetry to make paintings of insects

 

 

In Music, we’ll be finding out:

• About the music of the famous composer, Rimsky-Korsakov

 

On Tuesday we jumped into our new unit with the Entry point and Knowledge harvest. Together we brainstormed the names of as many different types of flowers as we could - we got 18! Then we brainstormed the names of different types of insects - we got 31! However, some of the insects on our brainstorm included worms and spiders and already some students were questioning whether they are actually insects or not. Together we will clarify if they are considered insects later in our unit, but we can see that the students come to this unit already with a wealth of knowledge about different flowers and creepy crawlies!

We then did our first observational study and plotted out 3 different areas measuring 1sq metre. In these areas we scratched and searched for anything we could find and classified them into three categories - Things that are living now, Things that were living, and Things that have never been alive.

The children have also started a collage by cutting out pictures of insects and flowers from magazines. It was a fun way to start our new unit, and we are all excited about learning a lot more!

 

 

IPC Exit point!

Primary Its shocking presentation from ghent.isg on Vimeo.

IPC Technology Task

This week students completed the Technology Task as part of our current IPC topic on electricity. After an intial brainstorm and sharing of ideas about what we would do in the event of a power cut, we looked closely at the torches the students had brought in from home, and discussed what jobs require people to use torches.

Using their knowledge of how to make an electrical circuit, students were each given the equipment needed to make their own torch - a battery with battery holder, bulb and bulb holder, wire with crocodile clips, a switch and a plastic bottle.

The activity quickly turned into a problem-solving activity as once the circuits were set up in the cut plastic bottle, the bulb did not always work!

After a few frustrating moments of having to check and re-check why circuits weren't working, everyone managed to construct their own torch.

What a fun activity!

 

What a busy afternoon! Both a science lesson and a surprise market!

    

Primary pupils were busy bees and worked with the science topic this afternoon, they used their knowledge and their understanding when they solved the different challenges! Fantastic!

The pupils visited three different stations. They used the skills that they have learned connecting circuits, and investigated why different circuits worked well and why others did not. They also used their knowledge to understand what circuit diagram belonged to what description and they looked at pictures of circuits and drew their own diagrams.

And then, after the afternoon break, it was time for a surprise market! The pupils had talked among themselves,decided who would do what and prepared a lot of small things that they wanted to sell to parents and staff. Both Miss Maija and Miss Jenny were surprised when they saw how hard the pupils had worked to prepare all this! Ivan had even been baking lovely cookies and cupcakes during the weekend! Of course we had to support this entrepreneurship! The last lesson of the day we quickly prepared signs, banners and posters, prepared trays with delicious cookies and made sure we found a great spot for this unexpected event!

       

The pupils had even discussed how they wanted to behave during the preparations for the market and during the market. "Be happy, be friends, help each other and be grateful!"

        

Since it was a surprise market, not many parents were prepared to come and shop, but we are still very happy with the customers visiting us and with their reactions!

Tomorrow we will discuss what to do with the money we earned. The pupils have already been giving some suggestions - maybe support the Unicef shop again, or see if we can help somebody else in need! Any way, the pupils worked hard and they should be proud of what they did this afternoon! We are!

Celebrating diversity

 

To develop children's understanding of down syndrome we watched this video clip

 

 

 

 

This initiated a long discussion about how we are all unique and have our own strengths and weaknesses.

For further information about the World Down Syndrome Day 2014 campaign or Down Syndrome International visit www.worlddownsyndromeday.org or ww.ds-int.org

Science task 4

Yesterday we started working with Science task 4. We read the following objectives before we started, so that we knew what skills, knowledge and understanding we were trying to achieve during the activity.

Children will be able to

  • Pose simple scientific questions
  • Identify ways of finding out about scientific issues
  • With help, conduct simple investigations
  • Thinking about what will happen
  • Using, with help, simple scientific equipment
  • Observing what happens
  • Comparing what happened with what they thought would happen
  • Offering explanations for what happened, and why it happened

We connected the wires to the battery and the bulb to make a basic electrical circuit.

This is what it looked like. We then drew circuit diagrams to show what we had done.

We investigated what happened if we disconnected one of the wires from the battery, each wire in turn. We investigated what happened if we disconnected one of the wires from the bulb, each wire in turn. Every time we disconnected a wire the light went off and the bulb stopped shining. We discussed what happened and could state the following:

This happens because electricity flows like water in a circle (called a circuit). If the flow is broken at any point in the circuit, by disconnecting a wire, the flow of electricity stops and the bulb fails to light.

We then added a switch to our circuit.

  We then had to draw a new circuit diagram, because we had changed our circuit.

A battery is a tiny container where we can store electricity. When it is connected to wires, electricity will flow from the battery through the wires. We tested, many times, to switch the light on and off, on and off. We discussed what happened to our circuit when we added a switch and we now know that:

The flow goes round and round, like a circle, until something stops it for example

- when the energy in the battery is all used up (a ‘flat’ battery) or

- when the circuit is broken by a switch or a loose wire.

Static electricity

We learned some tricky words today - particle, negatively charged, positively charged, attract, repell etc - and we talked about how opposites attract, how a negatively charged particle and a positively charged particle attract each other, and how likes repell each other. We then tested if we could see this by charging different things with static electricity.

We recorded our findings on a sheet and marked if we could charge a balloon, a wooden pencil, a metal spoon or a plastic comb with static electricity. The children cut small pieces of crepe paper and then tested if they could pick up the paper from the table. They 'charged' the different items by rubbing them against their hair and then moving them close to the paper. Some of the items - the wooden pencil and the metal spoon - gave no reaction at all.

  

We noticed that it was easy to charge plastic items with static electricity.

          

Our hair was charged with static electricity as well, after all this rubbing, so our hairstyles looked quite funny for a while. We now know that each single strand of hair stood up because it had the same charge as the others and therefore repelled the hair next to it!

It's shocking

 

The big idea...

Electricity is an energy that makes things work. It flows along wires inside our house and classroom. Our lights, TVs, computers mobile phones, cars, and many other things use electricity. Did you know that thunder and lightning is a type of electricity? Did you know your hair can have electricity too? There are lots of other exciting facts about electricity that we are going to discover together in the Primary class over the next few weeks.

 

In Science, we’ll be finding out:

  • about static electricity
  • how to make our own electrical circuit
  • about electricity at home and in the classroom
  • about the dangers of electricity

 

In Technology, we’ll be finding out:

  • how to design and make a torch

 

In History, we’ll be finding out:

  • What we did before electricity

 

A reminder that the Entry Point for this unit will take place on Monday 10th March with a visit to Technopolis in Mechelen. It will be a fun kick-off for our new unit.

We look forward to seeing you at Gent St Pieters train station at 8.40am at the latest. Please be on time! We will meet by the doors of the main entrance (facing the fountain).

Parents who would like to pick up their child at the end of the day from the station, need to be there at 15.05. Those not picked up will walk back to school for home time at 15.30.

Children need to bring a snack, a water bottle, cold lunch and some fruit!

We hope you have had a lovely spring break and look forward to seeing you soon!

Carnival

 

In the Primary class we have been learning about how to re-use and recycle! So, what better way to re-use plastic bottles, toilet rolls, yoghurt pottles and egg cartons, than to turn them into creative carnival masks! After constructing the masks we spray painted them and added some sparkly finishing touches using glitter. It was a lot of fun!

Parents, you can see more photos from our carnival parade with the pre-primary students in the photo gallery.

 

In other news, earlier in the year when the Primary shop opened for an afternoon, we earnt more than our 120 Euro target. After donating the sum of 120 Euros to a local charity '100 sterke schouders', we still had 46 Euros left to spend. Last week the Primary students chose three 'Happy Packs' on the Unicef website to help other people in need. We used our excess funds to buy 300 neonatal tetanus vaccines, 200 polio vaccines and 180 sachets of vitamins and minerals.