Man lands on the moon!

We've been starting work on our ‘More than Mods and Rockers’ newspaper reports work, using Talk for Writing strategies to orally learn a newspaper report on the moon landings. This is our first attempt at learning non-fiction in this way and we've had great fun so far trying to learn the text, drawing a text map and coming up with actions to help memorise the text. Here is a video clip of how far we've got after the first two days.

Dr. Ferret and his bad medicine workshop!

We had a visit today (Monday 25^th February) from members of the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama who held an opera workshop with our class. This was the first time any of the class had experienced any kind of opera so we were all a bit nervous but equally excited. We started off by learning some of the technical facts about opera and were then treated to one of the members singing some opera for us which was amazing! We then had a go at some warm up activities to get ourselves ready for the main part of the workshop which was to look at the opera ‘Dr Ferret and his bad medicine”. We learnt the overview of the story and then freeze framed certain scenes. Finally, we had a go at singing part of one of the main songs in the opera. It was an awesome experience which we all thoroughly enjoyed and now can’t wait till this forthcoming Monday’s performance of ‘Dr Ferret’. 

Scroll down for photos and video clips:

Videos:

Photos:

Science is tasty!

Year 6 conducted a tasty investigation today, looking at how the three states of matter are affected when melting a bar of chocolate. They had to make chocolate rice crispie cakes and observe, describe and record the changes of the states of matter as the process continued.

The first thing that intrigued the class was, “Is chocolate affected by all three states of matter; does chocolate evaporate?” This was an interesting question which they discussed and then came up with an idea on how to investigate. They all agreed that they needed to weigh a block of chocolate, melt it, cool it and then weigh it again.

A problem was then posed for them, how are they going collect the melted chocolate if they just plop it in boiling water? They discussed this and then came up with the idea of putting it in a heat resistant container and then floating that on the boiling water.

They had to weigh the container on accurate digital scales and then weigh it with the block of chocolate in. They then had to subtract this number to find out its weight. It weighed 8g at room temperature. Once left to cool, they reweighed it and worked out that it now weighed 7g, proving that there was some loss due to evaporation.

The rice crispie cake process then allowed them to observe and record the transition through the states of matter and the effect on the particles when melting chocolate. It also proved that science can be tasty!

1960s memories... we need you!

Next half term Year 5 & 6 are moving onto the topic ‘More than Mods and Rockers’. This is a themed topic with a history focus which is looking at life in the 1960s and the significant social, cultural and political events of the time.

To kick off this topic we are looking for parents/grandparents etc… who have memories of life during the 1960s with a special focus on life in Llanharan during this time. We’re looking for photographs, video clips, newspapers, magazines, clothes, music etc… which can help immerse our pupils into the ‘feel’ of the 1960s.  It would also be great if anyone could possibly give up their time one day in the first week after half term to share their experiences of life during this period with the class.

If you could help in anyway, please contact the school, or tweet us at @lps140club on Twitter or even respond to the post on our Blog.

Many thanks

Mr Roberts

Potions - soaps

Our class have been finishing off our ‘Potions’ topic this week by planning, designing, making and evaluating their own scented soap.

On Monday we tested and rated different scents such as apple, blueberry, coconut, honey, mustard, lavender, cinnamon and mint. We smelled the scents and gave them a rating out of 5. We then decided who would like the scents in soaps and at what time of year would they be most popular. Once each member in their groups had rated the scents they worked out an average score. The top four scents were then put into a mixing dish and stirred together to see how they blended. For sheer curiosity sake, the bottom four were also mixed together… these didn’t smell good at all. Mustard should not be put in soaps!

Today we had a go at making our soap. We started off by shaving a plain bar of soap into little flakes using a cheese grater. We then added apple, blueberry and coconut with some warm water. The next phase of the operation was for individuals to choose their two additional ingredients to mix in. The choices were from chilli, chocolate, coffee, mint, ginger and almond. The final phase was to roll together the ingredients just as you would roll playdough. When smelling the soaps, the smell of the original bar was still quite overpowering, however, when rubbing the soap on our hands, we could definitely smell the added scents. 

CSI Llanharan (Romeo & Juliet)

Our pupils were met by three officers from the South Wales Police this morning and the sight of their hall cordoned off with police tape. As they put on their protective CSI suits and stepped over the tape they observed two taped off murder scenes. Murder scene 1 had one chalk outline, believed to be of Paris. Murder scene 2 had two bodies which we now think were Romeo and Juliet. The pupils had to look at the evidence, discuss what they could see with the police officers and then come to a conclusion as to what they had seen. 

Snow Investigations

As Mr Roberts is currently busy brushing up on his Welsh, I (Mr Arthur) will be adding to the blog for the next fortnight, keeping you all posted on the goings on in school.
  Those of you following Twitter may well have seen the extent of the snow in the school grounds yesterday, we decided to make the most of this rare opportunity to conduct two snow based investigation.  The first investigation (excuse the handwriting, cold hands!!)

Involved mapping the school grounds and accurately measuring the depth of the snow at various points.  We then created bar graphs and collated the results to give an overall picture of snow 'hot spots' (pun intended.)  
Below are some pictures of the class braving the conditions:

We also followed some mysterious footprints, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!

Our second investigation was more scientific but required the use of many skills which we have been practising and perfecting over the last few weeks.  Once again excuse the handwriting (EVEN COLDER HANDS!)

Unfortunately we ran out of time to collect and analyse the results of the investigation, the snow just would not melt!! An update on the results by the end of the week!! hope that you have enjoyed your day off in the snow and that you are all safe and well.  See you all tomorrow (Fingers crossed)