




This week the Toucans have been learning about different types of materials. They have been identifying and comparing glass, plastic, metal, brick, rock, paper and cardboard. To start with, they were given a range of different everyday objects to explore as a table group. They were encouraged to discuss the uses of the different objects and to see if they could sort them into different groups. Each group then shared their findings with the rest of the class.
Toucans were then encouraged to re-sort the materials to see how many different groups they could make. Miss Hookes asked the children why certain objects were made with certain materials, for example why wouldn’t table legs be made of cardboard? Why are our classroom chairs made of plastic and metal? Why are windows made of glass? The children were then asked to share their thoughts. Toucans then went around the classroom to spot different objects made with each of the various materials and recorded these independently.
Miss Hookes also introduced the Rocket Words: flexible, rigid, smooth and rough.
Today in our science lesson we were looking at what animals live in the ocean and where about in the ocean they live. We started off the lesson by listing as many sea animals as we could. We came up with shark, whale, octopus, seal, eel, sea otter, plankton, jelly fish and star fish!
We found out that the oceans can be as deep as the mountains on Earth are tall! Our task was then to look at the different sea animals we had been given and read the information carefully as to where we place them on the sea bed. We learnt that eels live on the sea floor and feed on the dead animals found there. However, an animal that floats on the surface of the ocean is a sea otter. We were given a big seabed and we had to organise our animals in the correct place.
This half term the children have been learning about how to have a healthy lifestyle. Today the children completed an experiment using various crisps. The aim of the experiment was to establish which crisps had the highest fat content – we did this by crushing four different types of crisps on paper towels which in turn were on graph paper. Toucans had to count how many squares on their graph paper contained grease once crushed. They filled out their results on a table and then presented them on a bar chart. We found out that McCoys crisps contained the most fat out of all the crisps that we tested.
Toucans enjoyed a practical investigation today. They thought of ways to change the shape of an item.
Karly – You can squash it.
Olivia – Bend or fold it
Joseph – Stretch it
Declan – Twist it.
The class then experimented to see if they could change the shape of some items by using one of these methods. They tested a plastic bottle, pipe cleaner, a sock, a drinking straw, some play dough, a towel, a sponge and an elastic band.
Then we compared and discussed our results and findings together.