Miss Ellen McCrimmon
P5 had a wonderful day at Dynamic Earth last week. Everyone represented the school fantastically well on the walk and during our time exploring all the exhibits.
We enjoyed our time in the ‘Showdome’, learning about the Apollo Moon Missions and the future of space travel. At the end of the day we got to go around and enjoy the different exhibits, go back in time and experience how the Earth was formed and how it has evolved over the years. Lastly, we enjoyed a workshop on climate change. We learned all about the causes of climate change, looked at ‘sinks’ and ‘sources’, identified how climate change is manifesting in the UK and what we can do to reduce climate change and its effects.
Overall, it was a fantastic day out – I am so impressed with the behaviour of the P5s and how well we all participated in the different sessions.
Today in P5 we were learning all about Ocean Acidification. We looked in to how burning fossil fuels releases more carbon dioxide in to the air. This is absorbed by the ocean and is affecting all the animals and species that live there. We demonstrated this using red cabbage water (it was very smelly!).
Red cabbage water makes a very deep purple colour. We used the carbon dioxide we exhale as we breathe to represent the carbon dioxide being released from burning fossil fuels. We blew through some (paper) straws for quite a while and observed that the deep purple colour began to get lighter and lighter. This was an example of how this co2 is changing the acidity levels of the Ocean. We also experimented with what would happen to the purple cabbage water if we added an alkaline to it – bicarbonate of soda. It turned an impressive cyan green (as it was described by one of the pupils). This experiment demonstrated how important it is to make little changes to protect the planet and it’s oceans. We also had a lot of fun while doing it!
P5 decided to ‘mix it up’ between the classes this week as we made Viking Longhouses out of recyclable household materials. Pupils had a great time working together and produced some impressive Viking settlements alongside some informative posters. Take a look for yourself and see 😊
P5 had a brilliant Viking afternoon on Monday 25th March. The afternoon included a Viking duel, Viking handling session and much more. Take a look at the pictures and video to see for yourself. A huge thank you to the PSA who funded the afternoon for P5. It is very much appreciated.
Today in P5B we have been looking at chemical reactions! We learned about reversible and irreversible changes and focussed in on chemical reactions. We investigated ways to tell if a chemical reaction has occurred, using bicarbonate of soda with vinegar as our reactants.
We filled a bottle with vinegar and put some bicarbonate of soda in a balloon. Carefully, we put the end of the balloon on the top of the bottle. Once it was secured, we tipped the bicarb in to the bottle and watched what happened! THE BALLOON FILLED WITH GAS! We discovered that a product of this chemical reaction was carbon dioxide. We could see a gas was released as the balloon blew up. It was a super fun, yet a little smelly, morning!
P5B have been learning about personification. We thought about what we do on certain days of the week and how we feel on different days and turned them in to people. There were lots of sleepy Mondays and lazy Sundays – that’s for sure!! We made some illustrations to go along with our description and published our work as videos. Here is an example of a few. We will add more as more videos are published. Enjoy!
P5 Challenge Homework January 2019
During our topic, P5B have been looking at sound and how it travels. We discussed how sound travels during thunder and lightning, earthquakes and in general day-to-day living. We learned about how sound travels through different mediums – solids, liquids and gasses. We tested this using a cup and string experiment. We tested whispering to each other across the classroom and judging how well we could hear each other. We then used two cups and a long piece of sting pulled tightly and loose. We did the same with a short piece of string. We ranked the 5 different variables in order of easiest and hardest to hear our partners. We found that the shorter piece of string worked best when pulled tight as the particles in a solid are tightly packed together and can vibrate easily. We also deduced that the shortest piece of string worked slightly better than the long piece of string as the sound didn’t have as far to travel. It was definitely a very fun afternoon with lots of discussion!
In P5B, we have been very lucky to have some music students from the University of Edinburgh come in and improve our musical skills and talents. We have been able to trial different instruments and how they can be used to simulate different sounds, such as thunder, lightning, an earthquake, etc. As well as that we worked on our ‘We Are Scientists’ song, building on it week by week as we learn more about natural disasters.
P5B have been extremely lucky to have Grace’s mum, Steph, come in and show us how to make some decorations using salt dough. Some chose to make Christmas decorations, while others chose to mould their initials, food, animals – we had all sorts really. We had a wonderful morning designing and modelling the dough. Next week we will be completing them with some glitter and paint! They will make a wonderful accessory to any home décor!
Within our Natural Disasters topic, we have been looking at how light is used during any rescue efforts. Firstly we had to learn about some of the properties of light and how this connects to sound. We identified that sound travels slower than light, light always travels in a straight line and looked at how different materials either reflect or absorb light. We then went on to classify certain classroom objects as being; opaque, translucent or transparent.
During our P5 topic of Earthquakes and Natural disasters, P5B have been looking at building structures to withstand an earthquake. There was a lot of ingenuity in our designs. We thought about height, width and the use of cross bracing for this challenge. Once we built our structures, we had to see how they would hold up in an earthquake. We shook a jelly base to simulate the this. We started with smaller shakes or nudges for earthquakes lower on the Richter scale and we definitely did some much more vigorous shaking to reach 10 on the Richter scale. It is safe to say some structures were architecturally beautiful, but were not made for earthquake safety, however, we definitely have a few future engineers and architects in P5B who should be designing buildings all around fault lines as they were indestructible!! A great effort from everyone and some wonderful team work! Well done!
