Otley All Saints CE Primary School Blog

In Year 4, we have been continuing our look at local habitats. Children were out and about studying minibeasts (making sure to treat them respectfully and put them back into their undisturbed habitats).

In year 4 today we have been habitat detectives. When we found an area which was abundant with life, we investigated what kind of conditions the creatures seemed to like.

The easiest place to find a great deal of biodiversity was in our wonderful habitat pile. Inside the pile, we measured such conditions as light, temperature, noise and moisture. We found that minbeasts in our school grounds tend to like reasonably dry, cool, dark quiet places to live.

Here we are measuring some of the conditions in and around our habitat pile:

Last week Year 4 became quite good at determining whether a substance was a liquid or a solid. They remembered that liquids can be poured and that they tend to take the shape of the container into which they are being poured. Today we’ve been thinking about solids which behave in a similar way to liquids (e.g. salt, flour, sugar and sand). These solids can be poured and do seem to fill up the space in a container.

After closer inspection however, it became clear that sugar, sand, salt and other such substances are actually made up of lots of small solids (grains, crystals etc) and that is how they are able to be poured like a liquid. Here we are investigating:

We used a digital microscope to view some of the substances more closely.

Here is sugar:

And here is salt:

Our fantastic plant display in our classroom. A variety of flowering plants and vegetable tops!

The children are taking great care in watering the plants and keeping them healthy.

In Year 1 we have a beautiful amaryllis plant which we are looking after very carefully.As well as watering and feeding our plant we are also measuring it to see how much it grows!At the start of our experiment on Friday 26.2.10 our plant measured 32cm tall.We will keep you up to date on it’s progress. WATCH THIS SPACE :-
Our plant on Friday measuring 32 cms

Today 3.3.10 the amaryllis measures 40 cms.How much has it grown?
AMARYLLIS UPDATE! Thursday 19.3.10
Our plant has grown an amazing 14 cms and now measures 54 cms tall!!!

To learn more about materials, Year 2 braved the elements at Harlow Carr today. They found out about how a range of plants can be made into different fabrics. Following that they saw how the skins, bark and roots of plants can be used to dye cotton. Then they used reeds to weave – apparently a technique used in Tudor times for rooves of houses. Outside they looked at the work of spiders – the cleverest of all weavers. Finally (after lunch) they explored different areas of the garden and created their own journey sticks. A fantastic day out – here are just a few of the images from the day.

Given the recent weather, Year 2 have the perfect topic – Hot and Cold. Well, the cold part anyway.
So one of our experiments has involved looking at what happens to different materials when they freeze. This has prompted several children to do their own experiments.
Checking the results

We made our own switches today in Year 4 (with adult help and only using batteries to power our circuits of course!)

Look at this amazing volcano which Miriam made for her Learning Log on mountains(sound effects added by me!!)

Click here to view in your own media player

Isn’t it fabulous?!

We’ve started learning about electricity in Year 4 science and Thomas G has been inspired!  Thomas and his mum have built this quiz board using simple circuits. It’s a really effective European map where players have to link cities to countries.  We’ll all be making one of these in a few weeks, but Thomas (and mum!) are well ahead of the game!