The Years 5 and 6 are studying World War Two this term and were lucky enough to have a very special visitor this week, Sven Kirkegaad, a granddad of one of the children, who was just a little boy in Denmark when World War Two was going on.  He told both classes about his experiences of living under German occupation: the rationing of food; the blacking out of lights as British bombers flew overhead and the nice and not so nice soldiers.  Some of the children’s comments were…  “He told us some very interesting stories. ” … “ My favourite story was when he was telling us about the German soldier who came to his door, asking for his father and his mother had to race away on a bicycle to find him.” Listening to a firsthand perspective of war really helped the children understand how different and difficult life could be, as well as informing them about a different country’s experience of war.  Next week, Year 6 are looking forward to making models of ships which were involved in the battle at Dunkirk and possibly even a few famous Spitfires!

Can you think and act like a scientist? Year Five have proven they are real scientists by discovering some of the characteristics of solids, liquids and gases. Through various experiments, they have started to learn how matter can change physically and chemically.

One of our experiments involved finding the boiling point of liquids. Although most students knew the boiling point of water was 100 oC, they did not realize that other liquids have different boiling points. They were surprised to learn that alcohol‘s boiling point was 78 oC, 22  oC less than water. Both substances reached their boiling point within 2 minutes and once they started to boil their temperatures did not increase, no matter how long we boiled them.
Our second experiment involved a chemical change using vinegar and baking soda. We discovered that when matter changes form in a chemical reaction, it looks, smells and feels different. However, it will still have the same mass.

We will be scientists all term long, look for our next blog on how to create secret writing.

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The Dolphin Class turned into real life weather reporters in Spanish lessons recently.  In connection with their learning on the topic of weather with Miss Mani, they watched real Spanish and Central/Latin American weather reports. Then, they learned how to report the weather in different parts of the world for themselves. 

First, the children chose the continent on which they wanted to focus their report – Europe, North America or Latin America.  Next, they decided which cities they wanted to report on, and learned where they were, in order to make their weather reports slick and professional, just like the real thing.  I think you’ll agree that they did just that when you watch their superb video. Excelente!