Lewes New School Blog

Here’s what we’ve been up to this week . . . and by the way if there is anything going on that you could help with in any way please do let us know! . . .

On Monday Daisy came in to the Nursery saying “Can we make a kite?” This inspired many of the children to make their own kites on that same morning. They found the resources they needed then went to the playground to fly them. James said “They don’t work, they don’t work!” We’ve spent much of the rest of our week looking at how to make kites that will really fly!

Alongside this we have been looking at ways to identify the trees growing in the Pells park. We’ve been using identification charts and leaves from the trees to help with this. Today while having lunch in the park Loui found a leaf from a horse chestnut tree, as we chatted about the flowers and rather special seeds of this tree he declared, “That means that’s a conker tree!”

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In Class 1 we’ve had an explosive week! We’ve been continuing with our work to create a spectacular eruption. On Monday we experimented with bicarbonate of soda and malt vinegar. In small groups we thought about how much of each ingredient would be needed to make the best and biggest eruption.

Tuesday’s ingredients were suggested by Joshi, Otis and Josu. They suggested we look at the chemical reaction between cola and mentos. By adding 1 mentos to 500ml of cola we were expecting a huge fountain to explode from the bottle, but we were a little disappointed!

We thought about why this may not have worked so well and came to the conclusion that we needed 2 litres of cola and a whole packet of mentos!

On Wednesday armed with all the equipment for the experiment, we were successful! Come into Class 1 some time and have a look at our photos and scientific documentation.

In Class 2 this week we have been reading more of ‘How to Train a Dragon’ by Cressida Cowell following Amber’s visit to meet the author last week (we are reading a signed copy!). Taking inspiration from Lucy’s art journal, we have also been exploring collage techniques and seeing how we can use collage to inspire work in other mediums (some children have been enlarging sections of their collages and then painting them). We have also been experimenting with pastels and chalks, as our individual art projects continue.

We have continued to learn about different units of measure for mass, capacity, length, time and money. It would be great if this could be enriched at home, with for example, opportunities to cook or pay for small items.

We have also been debating ‘What makes a good shadow?’ and some children are now going to investigate the question they came up with about whether black paper makes better shadow puppets than white paper. Predictions are split; some children think that the darkness of black paper will make darker shadows, some think that shadows are just shadows and that the colour of the paper will not make a difference. We all look forward to seeing what happens!

Finally, we have started to choreograph our movements in dance, responding to the different qualities we notice within ourselves or wish to acquire – it’s exciting as things really start to take shape!

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In Class 3 this week we have been collecting evidence to show that we are pursuing and improving our learning habits in and out of class. One child has already brought in photos of something he’s been up to at home as evidence of how a habit is developing there.

We have been continuing with our Science projects on sound and most groups have opted for presenting their findings using Powerpoint. This is turning out to be quite a ‘head scratcher’ for some as we puzzle out how to draw and plot graphs to show our results! But perseverance has won out and we have some very impressive slide shows and posters to share. We have also been exploring how our perception of sound(s) can be confused by our other senses such as sight. This has led to designing some of our own mini-experiments to test some of these ‘interference’ theories.

We have also been continuing with our mini-garden tyre designs. We now have a price list and we have been applying our number skills to calculate our costs within the allotted budget. We now need to measure the dimensions of our tyres so that we can calculate the surface area and volume of the space. Then we just need to do our shopping and get planting!

We have also been practising our diving and retrieving skills during swimming sessions. This is quite challenging for some of us but, again, determination has shone through and we are becoming more courageous about how deep, and for how long, we can dive under water.