This week we continued our science topic, ‘The Big Build’, focusing on bridge pillars. The children were tasked with planning a fair test to determine the strongest 3-D shape to make a bridge pillar. They discussed the variables they would need to keep the same and change, before deciding how best to carry out the test.
We decided to use books as weights, placing these on top of each pillar. The children made their own predictions about which shape might be the best pillar. Despite last week’s discovery of triangles being a very strong shape, the triangular prism did not hold the most books. The cylinder was the strongest shape, holding up a large number of books before collapsing.
This will be very helpful information as Year 4 begin to plan their ‘Big Build’ project over the coming weeks.
In Geography this week, our children have been enjoying exploring the continents of North and South America. They used atlases and Google Earth to find a range of cities, states and countries in the two continents; plotting these on their maps. Using the eight points of the compass, they were able to see where these places were in relation to each other.
