Sapphire Yr3/4
Science
We have spent the past few weeks investigating what substances are the best to preserve apples. It’s like we are mummifying apples just like the Ancient Egyptians mummified their pharaohs. We cut three apples in half so we had six pieces. Each piece was placed in a separate jar and then we chose different substances to cover them in. One jar was the control jar, which means that it had nothing in it except for the apple itself. We had five other jars filled with: cocoa powder, washing powder, cooking salt, granulated sugar and icing sugar. Each week we have monitored what has happened to the apple pieces and looked to see which ones are the best preserved. We were surprised to see that the control apple was in relatively good condition, with only a little bit of discolouration. One of the worst substances to preserve has been the washing powder as the apple has gone mouldy and is starting to disintegrate. We are going to continue to monitor these apples for another few weeks to see which apple piece makes it to the end!
English
This term’s English has been based on the book Marcy and Riddle of Sphinx by Joe-Todd Stanton. It has been a lot of fun reading the book and seeing what adventures the Brownstone family are going to get involved in. We are really proud of our writing as we have done so much: instructions, explanations, fact files, diary entries, character studies, persuasive adverts and much more. We have not only impressed the adults in class, we have impressed ourselves too! Some of us found writing hard at first, but we have persevered and shown everyone that we can do as long as we work hard and participate in lessons so we can get the best out of them.
Art
This term we have been looking at drawing different Egyptian artefacts – ankhs, scarab beetles, amulets, lucky charms, jewellery etc. Once we spent a few weeks learning the specific drawing skills, we completed a final piece which is now up on display in the school. Our last part of the project was to make replica artefacts out of clay. We all had to make a scarab beetle and once they were completed, we could choose another artefact or two to replicate. We were really pleased with the results.
Maths
We have been looking at mental addition and subtraction. We have learnt lots of different strategies to help us solve questions in our head. One of the trickier ways was rounding and compensating as it had a few steps, but once we knew what to do, we really enjoyed using it in different ways. When you have to add 99 to a number, that can be tricky, so we round 99 to 100 which is a much easier number to add. You then add 100 to the number you’ve been given and then subtract 1 at the end to make up for the extra 1 you added on when rounding.
E.G.
458 + 99 = 547
458 + 100 = 548
548 – 1 = 547
History
We are really enjoying our unit about Tutankhamun. We have already told you about our dig and artefacts research. Over the past few weeks we have looked at the differences between primary and secondary sources which led onto a discussion about Howard Carter’s diary which is a primary source. We were then asked to imagine being Howard Carter and we wrote our own versions of the diary entry about the discovery of the tomb. We have also made maps in the style of Howard Carter to show where the tomb was and what was found in each section. Some of the most interesting discoveries were the canopic jars holding the organs of Tutankhamun found in the Treasury, the 100s of shabti dolls (which some people say Howard Carter stole for his own collection) and of course the sarcophagus of Tutankhamun himself. Some historians call this the find of a lifetime. We’ve also watched a few Horrible Histories episodes!
Class read
We loved having Miss Tonner read to us each day. Our first class book was Land of Roar by Jenny McLachlan. It was full of adventure, drama, a few scary moments and quite a bit of humour. We would all give the book 10 out of 10. We enjoyed it so much that we all want to read the next 2 books in the series.
We loved having Miss Tonner read to us each day. Our first class book was Land of Roar by Jenny McLachlan. It was full of adventure, drama, a few scary moments and quite a bit of humour. We would all give the book 10 out of 10. We enjoyed it so much that we all want to read the next 2 books in the series.
We have just started our next class book – Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll. It is set in 1922 and is about a girl called Lil who has to solve a mystery that involves the discovery of Tutankhamun. We are enjoying the book because it has flashbacks to Ancient Egypt and tells us about Tutankhamun as a young man.