Across this week, the children have explored becoming scientists to celebrate British Science Week. All of the research we conducted was based on the topic of ‘growth’.
Day 1- The children were in for a big shock when they came into school this morning, as they discovered there had been a crash landing. ALIENS HAD CRASHED ONTO THE SCHOOL GROUNDS!!!
The aliens tried their best to communicate to us through a letter but we couldn’t understand it, so we used our problem solving skills to decipher the letter. After deciphering the letter, we found out the aliens were called Zap and Zog. They told us that they felt worried that nobody would like them coming to Earth and they were scared that everything was bigger than them. After hearing this, we decided to create presentations for Zap and Zop to tell them about what they can do, visit and eat whilst they’re on Earth. We then went out to investigate the crash landing and noticed that a spider had become humongous. One of the children said:
‘Maybe a radiation leak from the spaceship made the spider grow bigger’.
We later learned about making patterns with representations of 2D shape and created crop circles from those patterns.
Day 2- Today we experienced science outdoors. We went on a nature walk to the allotment and the forest. We used ‘leaf identification dials’ to find and identify what types of trees we have on the school grounds. The children really enjoyed comparing the different types of leaves. We discovered that we have Oak, Beech and Holly on the school grounds.
Back inside the classroom, we created ‘Astro Gardens’ using grid work to plot our fruit and vegetables. Then, we wrote questions about our garden for our partners to answer. After that, we made ‘Astro Gardens’ with plasticine.
Day 3- ‘THAT’S ONE SMALL STEP FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND’
On Wednesday, we were lucky to have the chance to experience a planetarium in the school hall. We learned about the growth of the universe that we live in; our past adventures into space (The Apollo 11 Moon Landing), current astronauts living in the International Space Station (ISS) and our potential future endeavours to the moon.
Following from the visit to the planetarium, the children made their very own constellations and learned that a constellation is a group of stars in the night sky that make up a picture or pattern.
Day 4- Continuing our week on growth, the children investigated which materials are best for greenhouses to grow plants in. The children were placed in groups and were provided with different resources to build their greenhouses. To link with our year 2 topic of inventors, we took inspiration from Tim Smit’s Eden Project based in Cornwall. The children researched and produced a fact file on the Eden Project. The Eden Project is the largest indoor rainforest in the world that houses thousands of plant species such as fruiting banana plants, coffee, rubber, giant bamboo, olive and grape vines.
Day 5- This morning, we had a whole school assembly to celebrate, discuss and share our scientific journey. What a busy week!!!
I have been very proud of Year 2 for all of their hard work. By becoming scientists, they have learned to be resilient learners to find solutions, thinkers outside of the box and great supporters of each others processing.
Mr. Liew and year 2 would also like to say a huge thank you to both Mrs Isherwood and Mrs Daley for organising such an exciting Science week.