On Friday, we looked at the impact of human actions upon our world and some ways we can help prevent further damage. We watched some videos and matched information regarding plants and animals with facts about them and how human actions affect them. There was lots of discussion about the issues.

The sun stayed out today for most of our visit to Jarrow Hall to learn about Anglo Saxon life. Catherine, our guide, told us all about farming in Anglo Saxon Britain. We had a great time looking at artefacts and hearing the story of Beowulf inside a village leader’s home. In the afternoon, we took part in a mock trial and learned about battles between the Anglo Saxons and Vikings. It was a busy and informative day.

To continue or practical enquiries, we carried out a carousel of activities to:

• see how water can change from liquid to gas, then back again, using steam from a kettle
• ice (a solid) can be turned to liquid by heating it up
• see how salt causes ice to melt quicker
• explain the terms evaporation, condensation, melting, vapour

We learned that salt does not heat up the ice. To demonstrate how the ice melts quickly by adding salt, we learned about chemical reactions. The boys huddled together representing the particles in ice, staying close together as they would be in a solid. The girls then pushed their way into the solid mass, breaking up the boys’ structure and , causing particles to breakdown and move more freely, making a liquid. This is why we put ice on roads in Winter.

No particles were injured during the enquiries!

We spent the last afternoon of half term making Roman Aqueducts. We had found out what they were and how they worked before designing our own. We had thought about the materials to use and what would make our designs successful.

Class 4 had great fun melting chocolate to find out about how temperature can affect the state of materials. We found out that the higher the temperature, the quicker the chocolate melted.

Class 4 had lots of fun playing in the snow today.

Class 4 had a lovely treat today. We went to St Bede’s Comprehensive School in Peterlee to bake some fork biscuits. Yummmyyyyy!!

We have been finding the fizziest drink this afternoon. We used 3 kinds of pop, weighed a glass of each one and then stirred them to make them flat. We then weighed them again to see if there was any difference in weight. There wasn’t much difference but Pepsi was the fizziest.