Polar Bears

As part of our 'understanding global issues' topic, we have looked at how the ice caps melting are affecting the polar bears. We have looked at various videos and pictures of them in their natural habitat and sketched them. Following this, we created a polar bear out of recycled material and then covered them in modroc. Here are our polar bears so far - next week we will be painting them and you will be able to see them at parents' evening. 

Parent Event

What a wonderful afternoon! The children loved having their adults in and help them to create their own animal artwork in the style of Franz Marc. We took inspiration from some of his artwork, such as Blue Horses, Tiger and Yellow Cow. Take a look through the gallery below to see us working on our pieces as well as the finished piece of art. 

Science

This week, we were learning about water resistance. We all had a go at making different shapes out of Play-doh and then tested how long they took to fall to the bottom of a bottle of water. We discovered that thin, streamlined shapes fell the fastest and flat, pancake shapes took the longest. This was because there was more water resistance for the flatter shapes, which made it fall slower through the water. 

Art Day

On Monday, we worked with Year 2 to make 3D Colour Monsters. Hummingbird class used paper pebbles to create the 3D parts for the monsters. Then Toucan class added the colour. Finally, we finished the colour and added the extra details, such as facial expressions and fur. 

Science

In Science this week, we have been learning about air resistance. In groups, we designed a large, medium and small parachute and attached a small meerkat (toy, of course!) to the bottom of it. We then tested how well our parachutes worked by letting them drop from the top of the gym equipment in the hall. We timed how long each parachute took to fall down. We discovered that the larger parachute took longer to descend as there was more air resistance. We also learned that items with a greater mass affected the parachute too, so we made the link to why human parachutes have to be so much larger than our toy meerkat's. 

Art - Exploring art within global issues

We started our new unit and we talked about how artists use their artwork to raise awareness and talk about global issues. We discussed the decline in polar bears and changes in the Arctic. We sketched the polar bears. We also talked about the artist Faith Bebbington. We created visual notes about her work. We especially liked the large polar bear she made with plastic bottles.