Merlins and Ospreys have dug their own landfill on school premises!

They filled the landfill with different types of rubbish such as, milk cartons, plastic bottles, cardboard, tins, fruit cores and egg shells. The children then predicted what would happen to the items in a ‘rot or not’ exercise.

We plan to dig up the landfill in a month to check the results.

What a waste!

By Jessica and Callum (Ospreys)

Pupils in Merlins and Ospreys collected plastic over a week and put all of their plastic together in the Ospreys reading corner. Once it had all been collected, there was a mountain of plastic. We were shocked at how much plastic is being thrown away each week. We found that the majority of plastic was from packaging.

Here are some interesting facts that we’ve been learning about;
As plastic takes a very long time to decompose it is a big problem for the environment.
Every single square mile of the ocean contains 46,000 pieces of plastic.
At least 8 million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year. That’s similar to
emptying a garbage truck full of plastic into the ocean every minute.
Each year an estimated 500 billion to 1 trillion plastic bags are used.

We need your help! Here are some ways that you can help;
Use re-usable bottles and lunchboxes.
Buy fruit and vegetables that are not packaged.
Have your milk delivered by a milk man in glass bottles.
Reuse plastic bags or use alternatives.

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What a fantastic start to the term we’ve had in Merlins and Ospreys. It’s only the beginning of our topic and we’ve already tasted lots of chocolatey treats.

Last Monday was our WOW day. The children worked on a carousel of activities – these included making and tasting some authentic Mayan hot chocolate, designing and making some fantastic Aztec masks, a chocolate quiz with blind chocolate tasting and a science activity where the children looked at how chocolate could melt and solidify. The afternoon saw the children taste a cocoa bean – they were surprised by the bitter taste. A poem/music making activity followed this and no wow day would be complete without a choco-latte dance – ask your children for a demonstration! We finished the day with hot chocolate and a story.

Last Wednesday, we had our visit from Carl who works for The Ministry of Chocolate. We all had such a fantastic day and got to learn so much about where chocolate comes from, the farming process, fairtrade and chocolate tasting. The children ended with making their own chocolate. They worked incredibly hard to become level 10 chocolatologists. Keep an eye out for your invitations to our chocolate masterclass where you will get to learn how to gain the same accolade!

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