Soluble Solids

Today we have been learning about materials which are soluble and insoluble.  We had to carry out some experiments to find out which materials would dissolve and which wouldn’t.  We had to test sand, sugar, salt, chalk, coffee granules, gravy granules and rice.  We put them in some water and gave them a stir.  If they dissolved then we recorded in our results table that they were soluble.  We were quite surprised by how many were actually insoluble.  We decided that if we had used warm water we may have had different results.

  

Rhythm is a Dancer

In class PE we have been working on our rhythm and timing and learning some traditional Scottish dances.  We’ve done a Dashing White Sergeant, a Palais Glide, The Grand Old Duke of York and finally a Strip The Willow!  We’ve really improved our timing and have been concentrating hard on trying to remember the steps for each dance.  We’ve also realised that it is quite tiring and we need to be quite fit!  Next week we are going to learn a Westray One Step and also a Canadian Barn Dance – if anyone has any dances they like then let Miss Shearer know and we will see if we can learn them!

Mini Water Worlds

This week we have been learning all about evaporation and condensation.  We did some experiments to demonstrate these processes.  Boiling a kettle near a cold window is a great way to show evaporation and condensation – the water evaporates when it boils at 100 degrees and then when it touches the cold window it condenses and turns back into water!  We were quite amazed at this.  

We then learned about how evaporation and condensation are part of the water cycle - a very important part of life on our planet.  We know that rain falls as precipitation then the sun heats it up and it evaporates and turns into water vapour.  When it rises in the air it gets cold and turns into a rain cloud.  When the droplets get too heavy they fall as rain and the cycle starts all over again!  We’ve made our own mini ‘water worlds’ to show this.  We planted cress seeds in compost in a plastic cup.  We then added some water and then covered the cups with cling film.  We’re hoping that when the water evaporates from the compost it will rise and then the cling film will act like a cloud and catch the vapour which will condense and turn back into water!  We’ve left them over the weekend and we hope to see some good results by Monday!

Super Skippers!

In class gym we are working on our skipping skills.  We have been learning the correct way to skip and thinking about improving our movement patterns.  Today we went outside to the MUGA as there was much more space.  It was trickier to skip on the rougher surface but the extra space meant we could travel while we skipped. Then we counted how many ‘skips’ we could do in a row – must of us felt that we had improved since last week.  We’re also working on improving our stamina and we’ve decided skipping is a great way to do this – it puffs us out! 

Pudsey at SPS!

Today Primary 5 kicked off the Children in Need fundraising effort at SPS!  We used the Achievement Assembly to tell everyone what we’re planning for Friday 13^th November – Children in Need Day.  We had a very special helper come along to help us with this – Pudsey!  He came to see everyone and help us with our launch.  He also helped Mr McIntosh to give out our SPS Hero awards – it was a great assembly! 

Wonderful Wednesday!

What a Wednesday we’ve had! 

We started off our day by learning about time.  We used analogue clocks to play games with and develop our understanding of analogue, digital, 12 hour and 24 hour time.  We’re doing really well with this and are working hard at moving between the different times. 

 

Then we were learning about writing instructions.  To help us write an accurate set of instructions, Miss Shearer asked us to make a traybake called ‘Thirteen’s’.  This is because there is thirteen of each ingredient!  It was great fun crushing digestives, chopping cherries and mixing in condensed milk!  We left them to set and then rolled them in coconut.  We all got one each to eat and then we gave the rest to Primary 2 for their Macmillan Coffee Morning!  We were then able to write a set of instructions for making thirteens.  It was easy to do as we had just done it ourselves!  Ask us for the recipe – we might even make it for you!      

 

Needs and Wants

Yesterday we started learning about the difference between ‘needs’ and ‘wants’.  We discussed what we thought the difference between each one was.  Miss Shearer then gave us 40 bits of paper with different items on them.  We had to imagine we could only select 16 of these items and had to only take the most important ones.  After we had done that she told us we now had to only choose 8 items.  This was tricky but we managed.  Then we had to choose only 4.  We had to really choose the things that were ‘needs’ rather than things that were ‘wants’.  We had to think carefully about sources of food and water and how these would help us to survive. 

 

 

 

It was very interesting having to think about what we actually need to survive.   In the end we decided clean water, seeds, fertile soil and some chickens were the best things to have.  We then discussed that some people don’t have access to these basic needs.  We are going to learn a bit more about this throughout the week.