Mission Impossible

Purple Class were transformed into secret agents last week as they tested out their periscopes around school. 

As part of our Light topic, the children had investigated how light travels, reflection using mirrors and targets around the classroom, refraction and dispersion and to apply all of the knowledge and skills they had learnt, the children made periscopes. 

It was a challenging creation as the children needed to work out where to put their mirror holes and how the mirrors will reflect off one another. 

Capacity 

To start our capacity and measurement topic in maths, we completed a capacity investigation to try and work out how much water bottles without any measurements can hold. The children needed to use their estimating skills to try and work out an accurate estimate and then use measuring jugs to determine the correct measurements. 

'Eggcellent Eggperiment' 

Purple Class' Science topic this term has focused on Forces and the effect these have on our daily lives. We have looked at the impact of gravity on objects, understanding that the reason we are all not floating through the air is because of the Earth's gravitational pull. Meanwhile we looked at how air resistance is a pushing force that can help keep things from plummeting straight to Earth. To investigate this, we made parachutes to protect an egg from smashing when it was dropped from a large height. The children could use a range of materials and discussed as a class what needed to stay the same and what we would change. From the investigation the children discovered the larger the surface area, the more air resistance pushing against it. 
Fortunately, because of what we had learnt about forces, many eggs survived! This was a cracking egg-periment! 

Creating Planets 

Part of our Science topic included learning about the planets in our Solar System. We wanted to re-create the Solar System in our classroom by making models of the planets using paper mache.  The children worked well together during the process including using newspaper to wrap around balloons and researching the colours of each planet. Overall the planets look amazing and you can clearly see the difference between the rock and gas planets! 

Splattering of Space! 

To get our Space topic up and running, Purple Class created some art work inspired by photos from NASA, showing different galaxies and nebulas across the universe. To create the pictures, the children flicked paint onto their paper and used straws to blow lines of paint in different directions. All of the pictures fitted together so well, they are now the background to our Space display!