For their cooking and nutrition project, Year 4 pupils have been taking a closer look at the items inside a typical school lunchbox and investigating whether these foods are healthy or not. Pupils searched the nutritional values of popular lunchbox foods and found that items such as crisps, fruit flavoured drinks, cholocate bars and sandwiches (particularly those made with white bread) had few nutritional benefits and contained alarmingly high amounts of fat, sugar and salt. After discussing healthier options, we decided to focus on pasta salads as a healthy alternative to sandwiches.

As well as exploring a variety of pre-made pasta salads available from supermarkets, children taste tested different types of pasta and a range of healthy ingredients and sauces, before planning and creating pasta salads suited to their personal tastes. Then, using a range of knife and food preparation skills, including the 'claw grip', children made their personalised pasta salads and also disgned and made eye-catching labelling for their products, complete with information about the nutritional benefits of their chosen ingredients.

Appplying their knowledge and understanding of electrical circuits, Year 4 pupils have been designing and making their own working torches...with magical powers! Using the children's cartoon 'Jamie and the Magic Torch' as inspiration, children were challanged to plan, design and make a working torch with special powers that could be used in a fictional story setting to solve a mystery or a problem.

After researching torch designs and exploring existing products, children planned, designed, made and tested working prototypes, using their knowledge of electrical circuits, to make any neccessary improvements to their torch designs.

Finally, once their products had been subjected to final testing, children applied their understanding of narrtive stories, to write their own fictional stories about their adventures using their 'magic' torches.