News and Updates
At Thornbury, we believe that every child has the potential to achieve great things. That's why we are committed to providing a dynamic, supportive learning environment that helps our pupils thrive.
Foundation’s trip to the National Marine Aquarium
Yesterday, the children in Foundation visited the National Marine Aquarium. It was an incredible day!
We started by having a tour of the aquarium. We learnt lots of new science words like camouflage and habitat. We found lots of different creatures who use camouflage to hide from their predators. We were set the challenge to find different habitats. In one tank we found the rocks, sandy floor and open waters.
Did you know an octopus has 3 hearts and 9 brains.
In the afternoon, we were Ocean Scientists! We conducted 3 ocean experiments. We had to predict what would happen. We know predict means to have a good guess. We had to talk about what we could see! Well done Foundation for being Connecting Spiders!
Experiment 1:
We explored different ocean artefacts to learn about different animals.
Experiment 2:
We compared tap water and sea water. We started with an egg and noticed it sank in the tap water. This showed the egg was heavier than the water. We then mixed in salt. We counted each spoonful. We noticed after about 6 spoonfuls of salt the egg floated. This showed the water was now heavier than the egg.
Experiment 3:
We found out about different animals eat plankton (we made links to our plankton artwork in school). We thought about the different ways they eat the plankton and had to match the tool to the animal. We found out seahorses suck up plankton like a pipette. Butterfly fish pick plankton like the tweezers. The humpback whale will gulp the plankton with water and sieve out the water like the comb. Basking sharks will open their huge mouths to scoop up the plankton like the net. We were amazed that even though all the animals are different they all eat plankton!
We are incredibly proud of all the children in Foundation! The staff at the Aquarium commented on how well they behaved, how focused they were during the session and how they asked super questions. A huge well done for a super day Foundation!
