Who or What am I?

A group of gorgeous young writers have been working on some writing to share.

We looked at other author's examples of 'who am I' clues and then tried to write our own. We tried to trick our readers into thinking our who am I was in fact something else.

When we had finished our writing we put our work into keynote which is like powerpoint. We then cut our pictures into pieces to go with our clues. We added transitions to make things zoom in and out of our movie.

When we finished the teachers made them into movies.

They look very good and we are feeling proud of our work.

Bella

Caleb

Emma

Estella

Jacob

Libby

Maddie

Olivia

Rosie

Ruby

Thesara

Robert

Niamh

Lachlan

Aliana

Movies about St Albans School

Some children from Year 4 worked together to create movies that celebrate our school.

The first job was to take quality photos of life around St Albans to use in the movie.

We then had to choose a way of organising these images. After a lot of discussion it was decided to use; our values, an A-Z, the thinking hats and the past, present and future.

We have entered the movies in an eTime competition. The movie with the most views is the winner. So tell your friends and get watching!

An A-Z of St Albans School

by Zoe, Ngahiraka and Hilary

St Albans and the Thinking Hats

by Finn, Whiti and Ava

St Albans and Our Values

by Roisin, Pieta and Annabel

Past, Present and Future of St Albans

by Ethan, Jack and Emma

The Magic Box

Last term we looked at a wonderful poem by Kit Wright. We discussed it with Mrs Ward and Mrs Howison and then had a go at writing our own.

We worked hard on including language features to make our writing richer; alliteration, personification, adjectives, adverbs and abstract ideas.

We found images to support our poem on the internet and then put it together using Keynote.

Here are our poems.

Adam's Magic Box

Brydie's Poem

Gemma's Poem

George's Magic Box

Kezia's Poem

Lydia's Poem

Nate's Magic Box

Phoebe's Poem

Safiya's Magic Box

Trinity's Magic Box

Thomas' Poem

Our Environmental Inquiry Evening

Last Term a group of 15 Year 5 and 6 students involved in an extension opportunity with Mrs Hunter hosted an evening to share and celebrate the end product of extensive inquiry spinouts. An environmental theme produced a diverse range of questions and directions for student research. The evening was a huge success with in excess of 55 parents and friends in attendance. As many of the students selected Powerpoint as a medium in which to present their work, posting their work on the Blog was difficult. We have included a slide or two from individual projects alongside photographs from the evening.

HEAT IT UP!

HEAT IT UP!

HEAT IT UP

On 25th August as part of our GATE extension programme a group of 12 budding St Albans scientists participated in an exciting workshop at Science Alive –Heat it Up!

The workshop consisted of six stations all focusing on the topic of change. As an introductory exercise students were invited to taste two samples of chocolate-one had been re-set and the other tempered. They then had to compare the properties of the two using taste, touch, smell and appearance.

Everyone made a dough shape which was baked to be used later as a template for a plastic mould into which melted chocolate would be poured. The melting point of chocolate depends on the amount of cocoa butter in the chocolate. Pieces of milk chocolate, white chocolate and dark chocolate were put into test tubes and placed in a water bath. Students had to rank the chocolate in order from lowest melting point to highest melting point.

The second station focused on the boiling point of salt water-is it higher or lower than unsalted water?

At the next station students had to predict what would happen if you added salt to icy cold water and to name a practical application for its use.

The temperature of hot wax was then measured and its melting point predicted. A small mould was filled with the hot wax and the temperature measured again when it began to solidify.

Using dry ice the students looked at sublimation (the change from solid to liquid form) A pellet of dry ice was put into water and the time it took to completely sublimate was recorded.

At the end of the session the pieces of cooked dough were placed in between 2 pieces of polystyrene and subjected to extreme heat so that a mould was formed. Melted chocolate was poured into the mould and of course eventually eaten.

This was a very valuable experience for our students who had previously proved themselves to be very able in the Science area of the curriculum.

Making Silent Movies

On Monday we met Mrs Howison and looked at silent movies on You Tube. 

From Silent Movies

Then we made a plan of what we were going to do and we had to write it out on a story board.

From Silent Movies

From Silent Movies

From Silent Movies

 

Next we got to go and film it. We had to use as much body language as we could. We were able to use simple props. 

From Silent Movies

After that we fixed it all up on the computer using iMovie. We added titles over black as that

 was how it was done long ago. We made music on Garage Band and added it to our movie project.

We chose Silent movies as we are currently studying change. It is amazing how we can use modern technology to re-create movies made long ago.

I found it nerve wracking but also fun! Ethan

I found it rather funny and I kept bursting out with laughter. Ava

I thought is was exciting. Whitiaua

I thought it was really fun and I like not talking as I am quite shy. Anabel

I found it interesting that we couldn't talk but still get our message across. Emma

I learned how to put garageband music onto movies, is was exciting. Jesse

I liked the character I played. Roisin

I felt happy to meet new people. Ngahiraka

I enjoyed working in groups. Pieta

I enjoyed the brainstorming and storyboarding. Zoe

I thought it was exciting. Hilary

It was great, fun and awesome. Finn

Here are our movies, we hope you enjoy them.

This was created by Whiti, Finn, Jesse and Ethan.

This was created by Anabel, Roisin, Ava and Emma.

This was created by Hilary, Ngahiraka, Pieta and Zoe.