Holy Child Primary School
Sharing, Caring and Learning
Welcome
Primary 4 B
Welcome to our web page! We are P4B at Holy Child Primary School. Our teacher is Mrs. Thompson and our assistant is Mrs. Quinn. As we work from term to term we will post pictures and videos of all the exciting things that we will be learning. This term our theme is Time to Move. We have been thinking about things that move and change over time. This month we have been looking at how much we have grown since we were babies. We measured our height and our foot size and compared them. My goodness how we have changed! Check out our baby shoes among the pictures below. We expect to grow and change over the course of the year ahead, so in June we will measure ourselves again and compare to the start of the year. I wonder who will grow the most?
We organised ourselves according to height. Check us out boys versus girls and team by team.
We have been learning about the importance of keeping clean so we decided to make and advertise our own shampoo! Check out these great pics!
Look at the finished results. Don't they look professional?
Next we decided to look at the sugar in food and drink. Water had the least sugar in it and the teacher's tub of sweets had the most. We organised the goods into 3 groups: sugary, not very sugary and very sugary. Look at our investigation work.
Come back after mid-term and discover our exciting tooth decay experiments.
Halloween Fun
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Today we visited Castle Espie and learned all about the Brent geese that migrate there every Autumn. Thousands of them fly to Stangford Lough at this time of the year because it is too cold to stay in their home in Arctic Canada. They have to fly 2,500 miles to get to Northern Ireland avoiding predators, hunters and strong winds along the way. Their favourite food is eel grass but they like seeds too. We fed them lots of grain and had fun watching them peck and duck and dive for their food. We even got to see them from a special place called a hide. Using binoculars was great fun!
Tooth Decay Experiment
We know that certain foods and drinks can be bad for our teeth so we decided to test this out. We took some eggshells and soaked them in different substances for four days and then we went back to take a look to see if any damage had been done. Below are some pictures of us setting up the experiment.
RESULTS
Look at what happened to our eggshells. We ranked them in order from those that caused least decay to those which caused the most. As predicted, water caused the least damage. Its eggshell was the same colour as at the start and it had not cracked or softened. VInegar caused the most damage. The eggshell dissolved completely and we were just left with skin. Coke stained the shell badly and we realised that it wouldn't be a good choice as a drink unless we brushed our teeth well.
Handling Data
We have been learning about pictograms. This is when a survey has been carried out and pictures are used to explain the results in a clear and simple way. We had a go at making our own pictograms.
A little tin whistling for you...
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We are looking forward to Christmas and have been dramatising the story of The Nativity.
We had a little help from Kate in P6. She showed us how to make an iMovie. We chose to make one of The Nativity.
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Grandparents' Interviews
We found out what life was like for our grandparents when they were our age. We did a survey of the decades in which they were born and organised pictograms and bar graphs of our findings. Take a look below.
As you can see, most of our grandparents were born in the 1950s.
Christmas Sing-a-long
We had a lot of fun this morning at our Christmas sing-a-long. We sang Bualadh Bos which is all about Santa coming on Christmas Eve when we are all in bed. So we decided to wear our pyjamas for the performance!
Party Day and a Mannequin Challenge!
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Learning Through Play
Check out these moving vehicles.
Visit from Belfast Zoo
Today we met some very interesting creatures. There was Samantha, the snake; Pinto, the hedgehog; Rosie, the tarantula; Big Foot, the snail and Freddy, the frog. We got to touch them and learn about their appearance, habitats, diets and animal group.
Many thanks to Maureen and Naomi for teaching us so much about our special visitors!
We used Book Creator to create an ebook on our topic, Animal Magic. We worked in pairs or small groups to create a page each in the book. We hope that you like it and maybe even learn something new!
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Science is Fun
Today we had a visit from Science Starz and we got to experiment with acid and alkaline substances. Did you know that too much vinegar on your chips can give you acid indigestion but that a little spoonful of baking soda can take away the heartburn that you feel? Check out our investigations below.
Candle Investigations
We were reading about Icarus. His father made wings out of feathers and wax so that they could escape the island of Crete. The plan was going well until Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax began to melt. The poor boy plummeted into the sea and was never seen again.
We we decided to investigate the properties of wax.
Take a look.
- Wax can melt but it can harden again. This means that its change is reversible, not permanent.
- Wax is waterproof. When we wrote a message with candle wax and painted it with a thin wash the liquid was absorbed by the paper but not by the wax.
- Wax can float. When we poured melted wax into water it hardened and floated on top.
- Wax can be used as a glue. We wrote a letter and sealed it with wax to keep it private.
- Wax can be moulded to make new shapes. Madame Tussaud's is a waxworks in London where famous people have been recreated as full sized wax models.
First Communion Preparation
One week to go and we are getting very excited about our First Holy Communion!
Fr. McGlynn came in to see us. He showed us the vestments that he wears and taught us the names of the different pieces. He also showed us some of the things that he needs to say the Mass.
He has a special way of plaiting the cincture that he ties around his waist when dressing for Mass. He told us that he has done it so many times that he can do it with his eyes closed... so he did! Check out the clip below.
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We are coming to the end of our topic It's All Greek to Me! We decided to have a Greek picnic. We tried out sweet and savoury treats. Our responses were mixed. Olives, it seems, are not a particular love of most 8 year olds! However olive and herb crisps were greatly enjoyed. The natural yoghurt was liked by a few. A little honey would have sweetened it up. Sesame and honey paste was considered to be delicious and so were the raisin figs. We had mixed opinions about pita bread dipped in olive oil. It was probably a 50:50 split on that one. The goats' cheese went down better than Mrs. Thompson expected and the mixed bean salad was successful with most of us. Look below to see our feast!
Springfield Evacuees!
We became WWII evacuees for the day on our excellent trip to Springhill. With identity cards tucked safely into socks, hats and pockets we explored the gardens and barns of this beautiful countryside location and discovered what it was like to travel back in time to 1945. We learned about rationing of food and clothing and how important it was to Dig for Victory and Make Do and Mend. We hunted for double agents, marched to army drill songs and took cover under trees from air raids when the klaxon sounded. Then at the end of the day we cheered at the news from the War Office that the war was over! Thank goodness for that!
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