Year Level News

Year 2 Science with Mrs Graham

This term the Year 2 students are completing their Unit of Inquiry on ‘Sharing the Planet’. Our Central Idea is, ‘Living things go through a process of change’.

To launch our unit, last Thursday (18 July), Mrs Graham (BNPS STEM Teacher) came in and spoke to the students about ‘minibeasts’. We did some brainstorming about all the insects we know and then came up with ‘Code for Caring Agreement’ on how to care for creatures. Here is an example of what the students came up with.

1. We will be gentle and careful so we are all safe when we are handling beasts.
2. We need to respect and care for their home and environment.
3. We need to be quiet and still when we are handling bugs.
4. Where possible we try and put bugs back in their natural habitat.

Mrs Graham also bought in some stick insects for the students to observe and we learnt many fun facts about them. We learnt that only the male stick insects fly and that they wobble on the leaves to try and blend in with the environment.

The students loved learning about and watching the insects, a highlight being when they flew across the room! We are very lucky and even get to house the stick insects in the 2A and 2B classrooms (Mrs Morrison in particular is thrilled about the new classmates!).

The students will be working with Mrs Graham in the Science room throughout the term looking at a range of different minibeasts, recognising common features, their life cycles and different environments.

Year 4 Body Investigators Incursion

Yesterday (24 July), the Year 4 students participated in an interactive drama workshop, ’The Body Investigators’, where they investigated an unhealthy body. As ‘Full Body Investigators’ they became brain neurons, red & white blood cells, oxygen and gastric juices and role-played different body systems. They also explored how diet, physical activity and sleep impact on our body’s performance. See student report below!

On the 24th of April 2019, we had the Year Four Drama Toolbox incursion. It was called The Body Investigators. Doctor Fairlie talked about all of the body systems.

She told us about somebody called Bazza. Bazza was an unhealthy kid and all he did was be lazy and ate only junk food. Our job was to go inside Bazza’s body and fix it. We went through Bazza’s nose and down into his body systems. Then our job was to dress up as some of those systems and compare a healthy body to Bazza’s body.

We made four different groups, the first one was to represent the neurons, the second one was to represent the oxygen, the third one was to represent the white and red blood cells and the last one was to represent the gastric juices.

All groups took turns to act like a healthy body and compared it to Bazza’s body. Once all groups had done their healthy dance, Bazza’s brain was in control once again and he became healthy.

It was a fun and worthwhile experience.

Phoebe O (4B)