Environment Week 2019- Wall-E

During Environment Week we decided to use Wall-E to help us learn about the sort of environment we would like to live in. We thought that Earth in the future was messy and dirty and not very nice. We also learnt how important  plants were.

We decided to plant some beans to add some more plants to our environment. There were some other seeds as well and we talked about which one would grow fastest if we put them in a race.

Look what happened to the bean only a week later!

We also talked about 3-D shape a lot during the week as Miss Parker set us a challenge to build our own Wall-E but only once we could talk about the shapes we needed to make him.

Doesn’t he look wonderful? He even has a flap on the front so he can open it and put the rubbish inside. You might be able to spot some kids from Garnet class there was well who came to help us.

We also worked with our friends from Nursery outside to create a giant Wall-E. He was bigger than we were!

Our parents and carers made lots of comments on our learning about Wall-E during Environment Week.

What have we been learning? 

• About what our environment is and what we would like it to look like. 
• About the importance of plants and why we need them in our environment.
• About 3-D shapes and how to describe them using the correct words- edge, vertices and faces. 

How you can continue the learning at home! 

• Collect some boxes and junk modelling- can you make a model of Wall-E or a different robot? 
• Look for 3-D shapes in your home and think about why it is a good shape for that job, for example, why don’t we have a sphere for a TV? 
• Tlak  ajot what you like in your home environment and what you don’t like. Make sure you keep it tidy like Wall-E did! 
• Look at the plants in your garden. Which plants do you have? Could you add any more! 

 

Cannon Hall Farm 2019

Yesterday was our visit to Cannon Hall Farm. We all had a wonderful day. It was fabulous to get to visit a real farm and meet all the animals. We learnt lots about them all.

First we had to get on the coach to go to Cannon Hall. We went past Manor Top and all of the places we see all the time. Can you remember what we saw? We talked about all of the things we could see and how busy it was.

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Then we went on the motorway because Cannon Hall is not in Sheffield and the motorway is the best way to get there fast. We talked about the different vehicles we went past, the places we saw and also that all the houses had started to disappear. We got very excited when we saw the brown signs which told us which way to go.

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We noticed as we got closer and closer to Cannon Hall there were lots more fields and still not many houses. It looked very different to Manor Top and where our houses are.

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We were all very excited to arrive at Cannon Hall Farm. We had a drink and some snack to make sure were ready to go and explore the farm and meet all the animals.

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And then it was time to go and explore. We had to go to the meerkats to wait for Charlotte who showed us round the farm. She is a farmer. As we went to find the first animals some children thought it was a little bit smelly! First we went to see the pigs and piglets in the Farrowing Barn.

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Next we went to the next barn and we found cows and calves. There were also some goats and horses. Can you remember which ones are which? 

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Everyone was very excited when we got to the next barn as we were allowed to feed the animals. We had to hold it very carefully so we didn’t drop it and then put it in the special chutes to get the food to the animals. We then had to remember to keep our hands away from our mouths and eyes.

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We then had a very special treat and we got to meet Caramel the Guinea Pig. Everybody was asked if they wanted to stroke Caramel and everybody said yes. Even the children who were a little unsure at first. Again we then had to remember not to put our fingers near our eyes or mouth until we’d washed them.

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Then we went to wash our hands. We made sure we used soap and washed them really carefully to get rid of all the germs from the food and Caramel.

It was nearly dinnertime but first we went for a walk around the farm and to watch the sheep racing. We went to see if any lambs had been born yet. There were lots of pregnant ewes in the Roundhouse but not many lambs yet. Can you spot the lamb we did see?

The sheep racing was lots of fun. Everyone got a ticket which told them which colour sheep they wanted to win. We were amazed when the sheep were able to jump over the jumps! They looked really high.

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And then it was time for dinner! Everyone was really hungry after our busy morning.

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In the afternoon we popped to see the animals in the Reptile house.

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And then it was the part of the day we’d all been waiting for…….. THE ADVENTURE PLAYGROUND!!!!!!!

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We all loved the Adventure Playground and were a little bit sad when we had to come down and get on the bus back to school.

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There were lots of tired children on the bus and some of them even fell asleep. We were soon back to school though and were ready for hometime.

Everyone had a wonderful day. A big thank you to everyone who helped us and came along on the visit.

If you would like to visit Cannon Hall Farm yourself every child was given a 3 for 2 voucher to bring home. We have a couple spare if you didn’t get on. You can find out more about Cannon Hall Farm on the their website here.

Beautiful Butterflies

A few weeks ago now we decided that we would like some caterpillars in our classroom. We all knew they would turn into butterflies and were excited to see how it happened.

We were all happy the day the caterpillars arrived and were surprised at how small they were. It was fun to see them wriggling about-especially when they went up the top and walked upside down.

The caterpillars grew quickly. We decided we wanted to do some learning about them so read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and learnt to tell the story ourselves without reading the book.

Can you remember how to tell the story?

Then we learnt some information about caterpillar and butterflies using non-fiction books and information from the computer. We had to think carefully whether or not we trusted the information from the computer as we know you can’t believe everything you see on the internet.

We continued to watch our caterpillars until they got really big and fat. Then they were ready to build their cocoons.

We put them in their special butterfly house ready for when they hatched. It took nearly a week but then we had butterflies. We all enjoyed making our own videos of the butterflies using the iPad. (Miss Parker has taken some screenshots to show you)

After we’d kept our butterflies for a few days it was time to let them go.  Because we went to the Secret Garden before we just knew it would be the perfect to place to let the butterflies go so off we went. We were proved right when on our way up there we saw a different butterfly. It was brown with yellow spots.

Can you find it in the photograph?

We were very lucky when we managed to get a photograph of one of our butterflies flying away. It came straight in front of the camera on the iPad!

After we’d let all the butterflies go we spotted one waiting on the logs so went to say goodbye on the way back to the classroom.

Weve been talking about the environment this week because it’s Environment Week in school. We thought about how we could make the Secret Garden a better environment for butterflies so decided to scatter some wild flower seeds for the butterflies to get nectar from.

What have we been learning?

About the life cycle of Caterpillars and Butterflies.
To retell a known story using story language.
To think of as many words to describe taste as possible.
To try new foods we might not have had before.
To look for patterns in stories and the environment around us.
To look after animals who need us to be careful and considerate.
To write our ideas in sentences.

How can you continue the learning at home?

Look for butterflies in your garden. What do they look like? Can you find out which species of butterfly they are?
Can you explain the life cycle to a grown up? For an extra challenge can you draw or write about the Butterfly Life Cycle.
Can you remember the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar and tell it to a grown up? Remember to use the special story language we used in school.

We Love Forest Schools

We had a fantastic time on Monday morning when we had our first Forest Schools session. Matt and Sarah came from the Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust to help us.

First we played a warm up game called Winter Dragons. We had to work hard to keep moving and rescue our friends who had been frozen by the dragons.

Then we got to go into the Secret Garden. We were excited to go into the Secret Garden because we’d loved it when we went for the Great Bug Hunt with Miss Oades. Thankfully it was a bit drier when we went today.

When we got to the Secret Garden we played a game called Ninja where we had to sneak up on each other and steal the nature treasure. It meant we had to be super quiet and use our listening ears to find out when the Ninja was coming for the treasure. It also meant we could hear lots of other sounds all around us. Can you remember anything that you heard in the Secret Garden? 

Our next game was called Woolly Worms. For this game to had to use our observation skills and look really carefully to see if we could spot the ‘worms’. Some of them were much easier to find than others. Some of us had to look for a little while to see them while others of us saw them straight away!

Matt and Sarah then told us it was time for a Bug Hunt. We had some special equipment to help us catch the bugs that we found. We talked about if it would different or the same as last time we went in the rain. It was amazing how many different little creatures we managed to find. Would you believe that we found snails, butterflies, grasshoppers, ladybirds, spiders, moths, beetles and lots of different flies and bugs? Can you tell someone about your favourite one? 

This photograph at the bottom has a baby ladybird in it and pupa which the baby ladybird uses to turn into a ladybird. This is the same as when the caterpillar spins its cocoon and turns into a butterfly. 

We were able to look at them in the special containers and we spent a long time looking at and talking about them all. Everyone was very excited to look for different creatures and we looked for nearly an hour without stopping!

After that it was time to let the creatures go and we started another fun activity. Matt and Sarah gave us special sticky strips of paper and we could go and collect whatever we wanted to stick our paper. We looked for special shaped leaves, colours which interested us and other interesting objects such as feathers. Can you see what is on our special papers? 

Finally Matt had a challenge or two for us. He sent us off to find the skinniest thing we could find. Then we had to find the softest thing we could and the most inserting shape leaf we could find.

We LOVE Forest Schools and can’t wait to go again next week!

What have we been learning? 

• About the creatures which live in our Secret Garden.
• To treat creatures with care and respect.
• To talk about things which we find. 
• To listen carefully to the sounds we can hear. 
• To look carefully to make sure we see everything. 
• To look for objects which interest us and talk to our friend about them. 
• To learn and use words which describe objects, such as skinniest. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Visit the park and look for creatures there. 
• Make a sticky strip (using double sided tape) and look for interesting objects to add to it. 
• Play I-Spy to make people look carefully for different objects. 

Planting Tomatoes

Do you remember in Environment Week when we went to look at our allotment? Miss Parker decided we needed to learn about plants because lots of us got confused when looking at the roots, leaves and stems on the weeds and weren’t sure what to call them. We decided we would plant some seeds so we could watch them grow and talk about what we could see.

We were lucky in school to receive some tomato seeds from the National Schools Partnership.

We got busy planting making sure we had enough soil for the seeds and that we covered them up. Garnet class came to make sure everyone in Reception had one.

And then we had to wait…….

We are looking very carefully to see if we can see the stem and the leaves starting to grow. Can you see them? Why can’t you see the roots?

We’ll continue to watch them grow and talk about what we can see happening. How long do you think it will be before we see a tomato?

Keep coming back to see how much they have grown.

 

Caterpillars, Caterpillars (Part 4)

This should really be called Butterflies, Butterflies because look what happened?

Our caterpillars hatched from out of their cocoons and we had 4 butterflies in our classroom 🙂 Everyone loved watching them fly and if we looked really carefully we could even see them drinking through their proboscis. Can you remember anything about their proboscis? 

After we’d had them in our classroom for a few days we decided that we needed to let them go. We had a talk about where would be the best place for them to fly. It was agreed that we would go up on to the new school field by the Secret Garden because the children said there were the most plants and flowers there.

Thankfully it was a sunny day because we weren’t sure if the butterflies would like the rain.

Miss Parker unzipped the Butterfly Garden and pulled it down slightly. It didn’t take long for the butterflies to fly off into the sky. We all clapped and cheered when they went.

We’re going to be keeping an eye out over the next few weeks to see if we can see our butterflies when they come back to visit us. We’re sure they will fly back one day and see us 🙂 Maybe they will fly to our houses?

 

Caterpillar, Caterpillar…. (Part 1)

We has some more special friends arrive in our classroom this week….. 5 tiny and very hungry caterpillars!

Everyone is very interested in them and seeing what they are doing. Already they have nearly doubled in size. It has generated lots of talk between the children as they share their ideas. We’ve been discussing what we think will happen the caterpillars next too.

Come back soon to see what has been happening…….

Chicks, Chicks, Chicks….

What an amazing last day of term we had…. after waiting such a long time for our chicks to hatch, they did! We’d had them in the classroom keeping them warm in the incubator for 21 days (Click here to see the post)

Everyone was so excited when we came to school on the last day and one chick had already hatched. It was then very exciting when we got to spend the rest of the day watching the others hatch as well, by the end of the day we had 6 chicks. Some of our parents and carers even got to see the chicks hatching at our Easter Workshop.

In the afternoon we said a special hello to the chicks and everyone had a chance to hold a chick. Miss Parker and Miss Deakin were really proud of how sensible everyone was and how they held the chicks really carefully. After we all had to wash our hands remembering what we learnt at Cannon Hall about always washing our hands after being near animals.

We LOVED having the chicks in our classroom and are going to be sad now they’ve had to go back to their farm.

What have we been learning?

• About the life cycle and how chicks come from eggs. 
• To observe animals talking about what we can see, hear and feel. 
• To care for animals and treat them with respect. 
• To make sure we follow hygiene rules after handling animals to keep ourselves safe. 

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• Visit Graves Park or somewhere else with hens and chicks so you can continue to observe the animals at different stages of the life cycle. 
• Look for other birds when you are out and about and in your garden. Can you find out what they are? 
• Find out about different life cycles, such as tadpoles/ frogs, caterpillar/ butterflies or  even for plants. You can use books at the library and internet searches to help you. 

Glorious Growing!

If you walk into Onyx classroom over the next couple of weeks you’ll be able to tell its Spring. There is lots of springtime growing happening right in front of our eyes.

Keep coming back to see what changes have happened and if we have our chicks and our frogs yet.

Fabulous Frogs!

We’ve been very lucky this year in Onyx class as we had some frogspawn arrive in our classroom way back in April.

It was very exciting after Miss Parker spotted some frogspawn in her pond and asked if we’d like to have some in school. Everyone said yes of course! Everyone already had a good idea about what would happen to it.

We watched our frogspawn as the tadpole began to hatch and thought what we might like to learn more about.

As we continued to watch the tadpoles grow we got an email from Miss Hulme and Diamond class in Nursery. They wanted to know if we could teach them more about our frogspawn and tadpoles. We decided that we would make them a book but as we find out lots of information on the computer that we’d make an ebook on the iPad for them. We had to find out some more information first so we knew we were teaching them the right things.

You can read our book for Nursery here. If you look at the book on the iPad it even has videos of our tadpoles in it. Please ask to see it in school.

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Everyone was very excited about the tadpoles and waited to see if they were frogs yet. Some of our parents and carers even stopped off each morning to see what was happening.

Finally after waiting a really long time our tadpole started to get legs at the front then the back. Eventually they turned into frogs! Can you see they still have a little bit of their tails left? 

We shared our learning with our parents and carers in our floor book and some parents commented on how they’d been continuing the learning at home. We love to hear when this has been happening.

Unfortunately we couldn’t keep the frogs at school forever. Miss Parker had to take them back to the pond where they came from so they could continue to grow. Maybe next year they’ll be the ones to lay the frogspawn and we’ll have some more at school.

 

What have we been learning? 

• To watch animals and see how they move and change over time. 
• To learn information from different sources and transfer this to telling others.
• To care for living creatures and make sure they are fed and the water is clean.
• To talk about our observations of living creatures.
• To describe the life cycle of a tadpole/ frog.
• To be patient!!!

How can you continue the learning at home? 

• It will be too late for this year now but next Spring do the same as Corey’s mum and look for Frogspawn in the local ponds. 
• Talk about life cycles- How is the frog lifecycle the same as the butterfly? How is is different? 
• Can you find any books at the Library (school or Manor Top) which have information in about life cycles? What else can you find out about?