Category : Science

Today Year 1 were identifying and describing the life, works and impact on the world that Sir David Attenborough has had.

We found out that he is a broadcaster and natural historian. Lots of the children had recognised his name before. We learnt that he worked for the BBC presenting lots of programmes about animals and nature.

I asked if any of the children had heard of blue planet which is one of Attenborough’s many nature programmes.

 “my grandad always puts that on at his house!” – Myles

We read a story all about Sir David Attenborough’s life and found out that he has many animals and species named after him! We thought this was very interesting. Additionally, we watched some clips of his work and loved learning about how he cares for and protects all different kinds of animals.

We came across the word ‘conservation‘ and discovered that it means to protect the environment we live in, which is what Attenborough has spent his life doing.

“We should always put rubbish in the bin so it does not hurt animals” – Isla-Grey

“We need to be kind to animals and the world” – River

After learning all about Sir David Attenborough, we had a go at drawing some of the key aspects of his life. Like when he started narrating programmes for the BBC, when he received a knighthood from Queen Elizabeth for his work and also some of the animals he has protected over the years.

Finally we had a go at writing a sentence about his life and contributions to finding out about animals and habitats.

To explore our 5 senses we explored each one carefully. We first started with touch.

The children first discussed that we use our hands to tell if something is soft, rough, smooth etc. To explore this we passed round different objects.

I then asked the question “Can we only feel with our hands?”. A lot of the children first agreed and said yes. Then we discovered that you can still tell if something is soft/rough if it touches your skin on your arm/leg.

Smell

We then explored our sense of smell. The children could identify that we use our nose to smell.

We smelled vinegar which some children said was disgusting but most children loved the smell of the room air freshener.

Taste

Next it was time to explore taste. We tasted salt and sugar first with our eyes open. We talked about how clever our tongue is and how everybody likes different things because of our taste buds. We then did a comparative test to see if we closed our eyes, do our taste buds grow stronger? Some children agreed it did, but some said it tasted the same.

Sight

The fourth sense we investigated was sight. We discussed how some people may need help with their vision and that is why people might wear glasses. The children in the class were very excited to show off their glasses to the class.

Hearing

The final sense we explored was hearing. The children knew we used our ears to hear and that just like sight, some people may need extra help so that they can hear. We discussed all the different things we use in school that we listen and respond to everyday!

Our first lesson of the unit is ‘animals including humans’ and we focused on the enquiry ‘What are bodies and what can they do?’.

To start our lesson we sang the song ‘head, shoulders, knees and toes‘.

We then drew round around Elijah and Reuben so we could then label human body parts. We had lots of fun!

Here are what some of the children said:

“We have a heart to pump blood around our body“- Mylie

“We have eyes so we can see“- Isabel

“We have a skeleton which is made of bones to make sure we can stand up and don’t fall over like jelly ”- Myles

“Our skin keeps protects everything in our body from falling out” Matilda

We then continued our learning through our continuous provision. We made and labelled the human body for our science working wall.