Count the squares

As done in Maths today.

Muscles Newsletter Prep

Fold a piece of A4 paper to make a booklet. Ideally use coloured paper (card is fine). The booklet should then have the information stuck on.

First page: Title ‘Looking After Our Muscles' or choose your own suitable title. Then write an article about how someone might get RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) and how to avoid it.

Second page: Two sketches of someone lifting a heavy box, first in a dangerous way that could cause strain to their muscles, then in a safe way. Label the diagrams appropriately.

Third page: a recommendation of the best sport for exercising as many of your muscles as possible – make sure you give your reasons.

Fourth page: write your name on this but beyond that, leave the page blank as this will be stuck down in your books or on the display board.

You could get information from encyclopaedias, the Internet or a helpful adult!

Due in on Monday 5 November. It is two weeks' worth of prep so make sure it looks like you've spent quite a bit of time on it!

Checklist:

• Name on back


• 3 different articles


• Written in pen/on computer


• Straight lines drawn with a ruler


• No blocks of text copied from Internet


• Reasons for choice of sport have been given (p3)


• Diagrams labelled clearly (p2)

Resources for Life Processes lesson

This time-lapse video shows a plant growing over a four-day period.


This film shows elephants swimming.


This one shows chickens hatching from eggs.


Prep:

A day in the life of a frog

You are a frog. Write a passage describing your day. By the end, it will be clear to the reader that you are alive, because you have proved it by referring to all seven life processes.

For example, if you were describing 'A day in the life of a flower', you might start like this:

In the morning my petals opened up as usual (MOVEMENT). I noticed to my surprise that I am already taller than the buttercups (GROWTH), even though my stalk has started to lean away from the shadow of the tree (SENSITIVITY). I think that it will soon be time for me to drop my seeds (REPRODUCTION). (And so on.)

Then learn the seven life processes for a test.

Checklist:

• Heading?
• Date?
• Heading and date underlined?
• Blue ink?
• All seven life processes named?
• Life processes either underlined or in colour, or in capital letters?
• Learned the seven life processes?

Low impact meals

Think about what makes a meal 'low impact' and bring in written suggestions for what you might eat or not eat, and why.

As we have learned in class this week, 'Low impact' means having as little effect as possible on the environment and on the amount of greenhouse gases. Think about packaging, think about whether the food you don't eat would be suitable as compost, and you might also consider 'food miles'. This means the energy used when the food travelled to you and the CO2 that was emitted as a result of its journey.

This task is not about how healthy the meal is, nor is it about whether the food is organic.

If you have chosen to bring your own lunch to Holme Dunes, then you could write down what you are planning to bring and how you are going to minimise packaging, including napkins. Re-used containers that you will take home again for further re-use are encouraged. Remember that the lowest impact is likely to be caused by food that does not require new packaging (even recycling itself uses energy, though it's better than landfill). Don't try to achieve a zero impact - you should still enjoy your meal!

You could look at these websites.

What 'food miles' are (BBC site), or try this from Wikipedia (less writing but more complex)

This is about food that is 'in season' (BBC), meaning it does not have to be preserved for long, or imported.

Don't look at this American site until after you have already thought about the task for a while. It is full of detail and very readable.

An easy site - only use if you're stuck or confused: activity sheet 1 of this document compares two packed lunches, one low impact, one not.

Finally, this gives more information about Holme Dunes.

Google link

http://www.google.co.uk/doodle4google/downloads/doodles_and_template.pdf

My environmental area

The task is to design an environmental area that will attract British wildlife. Please try to have at least one endangered species.

You will have two A5 sheets of squared paper.

As described in the lesson, one is for a picture of your area, to give an immediate idea what it looks like – it might have a meadow area, a pond, a logpile.

The other is for a plan of your area, to give details of what plants are there, and what animals they will attract.

The picture (a view from above) does not need any writing except for heading and date .

The plan needs the same shapes as the picture, but no drawing, only writing. The writing is about the plants and animals that live in the garden.

For good marks, you need to show that your plants and animals are interconnected. For example, if you want to encourage barn owls, make sure you give them somewhere to nest and to roost. And then make sure there is suitable food for the animals that the owls will feed on.

Please stick the work (landscape) on two pages in your book.

Food Webs

Here is an empty food web. Copy it or print it out, and fit these organisms into the correct spaces:

Moth caterpillars: Tawny owls: Squirrels: Aphids: Trees (leaves, flowers, fruits, bark): Beetles: Bank voles: Foxes: Sparrows.

It is slightly tricky. If you cannot manage to fit them in, you can rearrange the boxes, or make your own woodland food web based on what we did in the lesson. You may want to illustrate it.

Extension: if the number of foxes goes down, what will be the effect on the tawny owl population, and why?

A complex example.

A simple example.

Read more (also has a 'create a food web' activity).

Design an Animal

It is the future, the year 3007, and it is now possible for humans to build planets, and genetically engineer plants and animals to live on that planet.

• You are one of the scientists working on the animals, and it is your job to design and create an animal which will be perfectly suited to its environment on this new planet.


• Your animal must be strong and resilient enough to survive in its environment.


• You need to consider how this animal is going to stay warm or cool, what it is going to eat, how it is going to get its food and water, and how it is going to care for its young to make sure they survive.


• Your animal must fit into the existing food chain - it cannot be the top predator.
  

The planet MARITT

This planet is dark and cold most of the time.
It is very mountainous.
It rains almost all day.
Because of the wet, dark conditions, the only plants that grow well are small mosses and funguses.
Animals on this planet include a type of mouse, a nocturnal hunting large cat, fish, and a variety of insects.




The planet Q’ENNIT

This planet is dry and hot.
Most of the planet is flat.
Water is found in underground streams but there is little water on the surface of the planet.
Most of the planet’s surface is covered in sand, although there are patches of dry grass.
When plants can get their roots down into the water table, they grow into tall trees with leaves at the top but not along the trunk.
Plants which are not connected to the water table are small and dry, but they are edible.
Animals on this planet include carnivorous insects that attack in packs, a species of birds which roost in the high trees, a harmless sand-coloured lizard and a type of rat that eats dead flesh.

The planet DHONI

This planet is tropical: wet and hot.
Most of the planet is covered by rainforest.
The planet is very flat. Water collects in large pools and lakes which have water in them all year round.
A species of poisonous plant grows thickly on the ground. The spines of this plant are poisonous, and any animal which steps on one is sure to die.
The vegetation is plentiful, and includes leaves, fruits and nuts.
Animals include carnivorous snakes, varieties of insects, monkeys, fish and birds.

6I Woodlice Habitat Experiment

Write the method and results for the experiment, and provide a diagram.

The method should be in bullet points. Give reasons where appropriate, especially to do with your health and safety, or that of the woodlice.

The diagram comes next. Use a ruler and pencil, and label it in pen. It is to make your method clearer.

The results are simply a list of where the woodlice ended up.

Checklist: does the method mention everything listed in the apparatus? Is your method clear enough for someone to repeat the experiment in your absence? Does your method include reasons?

Tanka

Write out your tanka (in landscape) on one of your cards. Rule pencil lines first and then rub them out when you have finished.

Punctuation: because tanka are trains of thought, we have decided to use ‘minimalist’ punctuation, like the tanka that we looked at. However, if it is necessary to avoid confusion then of course punctuate. You must still have a full stop at the end, and a capital letter at the beginning of every line.

Use blue ink.

Your title should appear at the top left, underlined.
Then leave a blank line.
Then your poem.
Then leave another blank line.
Then your initials. No date.

Example:

Song

Can you hear it now?
Soft and sweet upon the night
Seducing my heart
With sounds so pure and tender:
The song of the nightingale.

MM

Your picture should be landscape too. Use only these colours, to make our display more effective: Yellow Green Brown You can also use grey and black.

Conclusion to Mould Experiment

Your task is to write the conclusion to the experiment you have just finished.

This can be done by hand, or printed on the computer and stuck into your book.

A conclusion is much more than just stating the results. (That is what the RESULTS section is for!)

First, you need to look at your prediction and say whether this was correct. If it was, try to think of additional reasons why it was correct. If not, try to think of why.

You can provide a brief commentary on the results, but without repeating what the graph clearly shows. Perhaps things happened unexpectedly quickly with one of your pieces of bread? Or the growth of mould was faster as the days went on? Anything that you think is important and needs pointing out.

You should also mention anything that happened when you set up the experiment that wasn't exactly how you wanted it to be, or anything that you did in your observations that might have affected the results.

You could suggest what you might do differently if you had the chance to do a similar experiment, and why.

Examples by 6B:

Butter and Margarine are very similar. This may explain why the results were close, very close. We did predict this, although we can't explain why the mould took so long to grow. But when it did, the growth of the mould was rapidly promoted. Next time, I would like to use different brands of butter.

We did not expect it, but the fungi seemed to be attracted to the control instead of the sugar solution. We think this is because of the moisture in the bread. We think the fungi fed on the moist bread's cells instead of the sugar. You can see from our graph that the control rapidly grew mould while the sugar only steadily promoted it. Next time we would like to try to inhibit mould instead of promote it, perhaps with acid or alcohol.

Keys prep

Complete the Keys sheets. Particularly for the last sheet, do in pencil first in case you go wrong. If possible, get someone to go through your keys to check that they work. Cut around the keys and pictures, and stick in your book.

Extension: Find out the names of the native British owls, and make an illustrated key to identify them.

Habitat poster prep

Create an A4 poster entitled Where I Live

Don’t write too much, as it is a poster, not a leaflet. A picture might help to catch the eye, especially as yours could be chosen for display.

Write about any animal that lives in Britain. Your information must highlight its habitat (what sort of place it lives in, hunts in; how far it travels), although of course you can include other information as well. For higher marks, show how the animal itself is suited to its habitat, e.g. squirrels have tails which help to give them balance on trees, claws to help them climb, sharp teeth to help them eat the nuts that they find.

Many people will already have books with useful information. I have found a few websites but you may well find others: BBC (or this one for younger children), Hedgehogs, badgers (advanced), a slideshow (if you have Powerpoint), General links.

Before handing it in please check: the title is correct, the work is named on the back, the animal is a wild one, and it lives in Britain.

6I English Prep

You have been allowed to have ten friends to your house for your birthday party. Your parents are going out for the evening. Your task is to write a set of rules for how your friends should behave in the house.

Rules are statements of what you are allowed (or not allowed) to do. It is important not to have too many, or too complicated ones, or they will not be easily remembered. However, you could highlight the most important ones and express the less important in another way.

Think about:

• general behaviour
• any rooms out of bounds
• where is food allowed
• what about music?
• anything else that would be important in your house

Remember:

• rules should be fair to everyone
• they should be easy to remember
• they should be understandable (think about your audience)

Do on paper, either by hand or on computer. Spend 30-40 mins, then decorate it appropriately if you wish.

Due on Monday.

6W Science Prep

Write the apparatus and method for your experiment, and do a labelled diagram. Apparatus should be in bullet points (no need to mention water unless it is hot).

The method should also be bulleted. It must include reasons for the procedures - perhaps to do with health, or ensuring a fair test.

Like the method and the appratus, your diagram should be helpful to someone trying to repeat your experiment in your absence. "A picture paints a thousand words." Make sure it is done using ruler and pencil, and is labelled. The diagram illustrates the method, not the results, so don't show any mould.

Due on Monday. To be done in Science book.

Idioms Prep from JER

Stick the pictures illustrating idioms into your books, either separately or together in the centre. Write the idiom that is shown by the picture, and what the idiom actually means. Then draw some of your own pictures showing other idioms, again writing both the idiom and the meaning.

Don't forget underlined heading and date.

For a star tomorrow, use one of these idioms naturally in conversation with an adult: they must sign a note confirming you have done this.

My hope is that you will begin to use a few of these in your own writing.

The White Envelope

‘Look, Mummy, a man!’ said Charlie, looking up from the sandpit.

Hannah looked. At the garden gate was a middle-aged man, in a rather shabby coat, holding something white in his hand.

Charlie returned his attention to his toys.

The man was staring. Then, without waiting for an invitation, he opened the gate and wandered down the path. Hannah saw that the white something was an envelope, unusually large.

Continue the story for about 25 lines.

Remember to plan a problem and resolution, but the resolution should not happen too quickly. Include a variety of speech and more descriptive writing. Try to do this as a timed task - 30 minutes. On lined paper, not in books.