Grouping animals in MI

20th January 2025Stacey McClare

Our expeditionary learning today allowed us to recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of different ways. First of all we looked at a variety of objects and thought about how we may group them. We worked well in mini crews to do this. We then moved onto looking at similarities and differences between certain living things and animals. We thought back to our previous lessons on food chains and skeletons to help us with this task. We then moved onto sorting animals into groups using similarities and differences to help us. We thought more about how animals can be grouped including through habitat, physical features and through diet. We discussed the term classify in more detail and related this to ‘taxonomy’. Again, there were lots of reading opportunities where we used fastest finger first to find answers. From here we worked in mini crews to find as many different ways as we could to sort a variety of animal pictures. There was some great collaborative working which was fantastic to see. Our debrief then allowed us to share our groups with the whole crew.

Skeletons and muscles in MI

15th January 2025Stacey McClare

The activate to our expedition lesson today allowed us to recap the human body by making a skeleton. We did this in hook week and it was incredible to see how much quicker we had got today and how much we had remembered!

From here we discussed the differences between vertebrates and invertebrates where we did lots of reading out loud. We played fastest finger first and did lots of discussion! Some of the facts really surprised us when reading. We then explored the types of skeletons linking these to vertebrates and invertebrates. We did some partner reading, echo reading and also some independent reading. We then tested our understanding so far with a quick quiz! We all enjoyed this.

From here we worked in mini crews to sort animals into the two groupings- vertebrates and invertebrates. We discussed our ideas and explained our reasons. We then moved onto the human skeleton, we looked at scientific names for our bones, explored how many bones an adult human skeleton has and looked at what a skeleton does. We linked our skeleton to the digestive process, thinking about the organs that are protected by our bones. From here we discussed our muscles, we even had a go at contracting and relaxing our biceps and triceps! Tomorrow we will assess our understanding with a kahoot quiz!

Digestion – How does it work?

13th January 2025Ruth Shields

After learning about the organs involved with digesting out food, we learned about how each organ plays a vital role in the digestion of food. We discovered the journey that food takes and what happens to it in each stage. To help with this we were able to complete an experiment which shows what happens to food. This did get a little messy but we had fun and really helped our understanding.

Where do the bones and organs go?

13th January 2025Ruth Shields

Before learning about the digestive system, we built a human. Children worked together to cut out the bones and organs before deciding where they thought they should go. We were pretty good at deciding where the bones should go but needed a little support with the organs. We then narrowed it down to the organs that are involved with digesting our food.

How do different liquids effect our teeth?

13th January 2025Ruth Shields

To help us understand the effects of different liquids on our teeth, we conducted an experiment. We used an egg shell which is similar to the enamel of our teeth and placed it into 5 different liquids – coke, orange juice, dilute, coffee and water. We predicted which liquid would cause the most damage. The majority of the crew thought this was coke, however, we were in for a surprise.

After a week, we observed the changes to the egg. Surprisingly, the egg with the most damage was the one in pure orange. This caused a thin layer to peel off and left the surface mottled and rough. Although, fruit is good for us we need to ensure we brush our teeth because the natural sugar in fruit can damage our teeth.

Names of our teeth

13th January 2025Ruth Shields

Last week we started hook week off by learning about teeth. We learned about the different teeth that we have to help us eat. We learned the function (job) of the teeth and the location of each type of teeth. We read a text together about teeth which helped us gain further knowledge about teeth. Did you know that humans have 2 sets of teeth in their lifetime? Did you know that not everyone gets wisdom teeth?

Hook week continues in MI

8th January 2025Stacey McClare

We are loving our new expedition! Today we moved onto understanding about digestion. First we built a human body in mini crews, discussing what we already know. We then moved onto labelling our organs and placing them on our human body.

We then explored the organs in more detail thinking about their role. We thought about which of the organs belong to our digestive system. We watched a video clip to build further background knowledge. We did lots of discussion around each organ thinking about its role and how it adds to the digestive process. We then demonstrated our learning in a mini crew activity. We used picture cards, word cards and explanation cards to match up all the different organs.

From here it got messy! We put the digestive process into practice using biscuits, a banana, water, orange juice and a pair of tights! We loved taking part in this!

We then started writing up our model of the digestive system and will continue to work on this tomorrow.

Hook week begins in MI

7th January 2025Stacey McClare

It has been wonderful to have Crew MI back in the classroom today and what a great start we have had! We have loved getting started with our hook week learning.

We started our learning by looking at the different types of teeth we have!We explored why we have teeth with lots of reading opportunities and lots of focus on our fluency and words per minute. We explored our mouths with a mirror where we looked at the different teeth we have. We labelled a diagram of the teeth then created some writing on the functions of the teeth.

We then moved onto setting up our teeth investigation where we will explore the impact different liquids have on our teeth.

We created our own question and hypothesis then thought about our variables. We listed all the equipment we would use then created our method.

We then explored the best ways to look after our teeth. We watched a video clip all about healthy teeth and visiting the dentist. We looked at how we should be brushing our teeth and even had a go at this! Finally we thought about all the foods and drinks for healthy teeth.

Crew Boswell – Exercise

15th May 2024Matthew Boswell

As part of our expedition, we have been looking at the impact exercise has on our bodies (especially our hearts). In this session, we took part in an online fitness workout to get our hearts pumping and really reflect on the impact exercise has on our bodies. We noticed that we’re all very different and exercise affects each one of us differently – and that’s ok. Now that we’ve learnt about the long-term benefits of staying active, we’ll definitely try our best to keep active!

Crew Boswell – All About Blood

7th May 2024Matthew Boswell

In expedition, we have been learning all about our blood – its purpose and how it is made. We’ve written about it, drawn it and discussed it (as well as acted it out). We enjoyed the Kahoot! we completed to consolidate all of our learning.