Ptarmigan
As part of Multicultural Week, Ptarmigans cooked Jamaican Rice and Peas (actually beans) with Jerk Chicken. Why not try some at home?
Ptamigan's visit to the Holy Family Roman Catholic Church.
A water resistance investigation.
Testing Spinners in Science
When it is too wet for outdoor games we can always play New Age Kurling and Boccia!
A visit to Ford Park Cemetery to investigate WW1 graves.
Calculating the Area of the World's Smallest Country
For European Languages Day, Ptarmigans studied The Vatican City. Its area is only 44 hectares (0.44 sq km), far smaller than Plymouth! We decided that we could calculate the area enclosed by Ham Drive, Honicknowle Lane, Melrose Avenue and Arden Grove by measuring each road using trundle wheels. Although the block is not an exact rectangle, we were able to work out that its area is about 3.5 hectares; therefore, only 12.5 blocks of this size would be needed to make an entire country!
We also studied some Latin (one of the Vatican's official languages) by translating Harry Potter spells into English; in addition, we created Latin mottos for our class- watch this space for our favourite!
The Great Ham Drive Space Walk
To help us understand the true scale of The Solar System, we created the Great Ham Drive Space Walk! We used a ball (20 cm diameter) to represent the Sun and Blu-Tack to represent the planets (from less than 1mm for Mercury to 2.2 cm for Jupiter). Staring at the junction with Arden Grove, we used trundle wheels to measure the scale distance between the planets. The first four were quite close together, but they soon spread out! In fact, Neptune was almost at Mayflower School!
To give us a real sense of the vastness of space, we worked out that someone holding a 20 cm ball to represent our nearest star (Alpha Centuri) would have to stand in the centre of Rome!
Outdoor Maths at St. Pancras' churchyard.