Respiratory system

This week, Judit and Sara have been focusing on their science and their maths skills. They were revising their knowledge of one of the important systems of the human body, the respiratory system. They learned what this system does to help the body to survive by allowing the body to inhale oxygen which gets used by the body to oxygenate the blood and the organs especially the heart and the brain. They recognised that the body uses respiration to expel carbon dioxide which is a harmful gas for the body. The girls drew and labelled the diagram of the system and learned what each part of the diagram played to aid the inhalation and exhalation of gases to the body. Key words were diaphragm, alveoli and trachea.

         They recognised that if there were any form of obstruction to the system it would cause difficulty to breath and ultimately poor health such as the conditions bronchitis, asthma and pneumonia. In severe cases obstruction to the system could be fatal. They went on to learn that some jobs use the lungs and diaphragm to their fullest capacity such as professional singers, some musicians and Olympic swimmers.

         Later in the week they focused on looking at the three main earth layers, the geosphere, hydrosphere and the atmosphere. They focused on looking closely at the Earth’s atmosphere and identified the different layers of the atmosphere especially the very fragile ozone layer which is there within the troposphere and has the task of protecting the Earth from the very harmful rays of the Sun. They worked out that without this ozone layer, life on Earth would not survive. As well as, being aware that humans pay a big part to what is happening with the ozone layer.   

   In their maths the girls focus has been to revise their maths skills by reading and completing word problem questions to solve problem about a range of maths topics such as capacity, distance, time and the four operations (adding, subtraction, division and multiplication). Later on in the week, they were introduced to coordinates.  In their maths skills Jordi and Sergi were beginning to look at completing a chart by sorting coloured magnets into the correct field. Jordi had to count how many magnets were in each colour groups.

       The boys worked as a team to construct two puzzles, by checking shape, colour and pattern of the interlinking pieces. Jordi practised some of his sight words and read the story ‘Tim’s Din’.