The class are currently learning about electricity and they have been using electrical equipment to make circuits. They have drawn diagrams of their own circuits and then made them to see if they work. More recently, they have investigated whether adding more batteries will impact the brightness of the bulb.
Year 6 researched the circulatory system.
As part of our explorers theme, the children of F2 have been on a minibeast hunt! We have been learning about different minibeasts and their habitats- we made predictions about which minibeasts that we may find in our school environment and where they might be. Then we went on our hunt! We captured our findings using the camera on our iPads.
The children of F2 have been practising their threading skills this week. Linked to our explorer topic and our work on minibeasts, we have been creating our own spiders and spider webs, threading wool through holes to create the webs.
The children of F2 have loved adding some new bedding plants into our outdoor environment this week. We have been excited to see some of our plants and bulbs sprouting up too. We know the names of the different parts of the plant, the job of the roots, and what plants need to grow.
We have also made observational drawings of our growing cress on the discovery table. It has changed so much! We are conducting a new experiment to find out what will happen to cress grown in different conditions. We have put some cress seeds in a dark box, giving them water but not light, then we have put some other cress seeds in a light spot, but not given them any water. We have made predications about what will happen to them.
We have some exciting new visitors in our classroom: five tiny caterpillars! They are living on our discovery table and we are excited to watch them grow. Today, we found out about the life cycle of a butterfly and found out some interesting facts… Did you know that butterflies have no eyelids so cannot close their eyes? We also learned that butterflies have a long, curled up tongue called a proboscis that they use to drink the nectar. Our new vocabulary is nectar, proboscis, cocoon and chrysalis. Please talk to your children about our wriggly friends.
As part of our new Spring and Growing theme, EYFS have had a fabulous morning down on the farm this week! We have been stroking rabbits, taking a tractor ride, meeting a range of animals, plus feeding goats and sheep. We talked about how baby animals are born in the Spring time and we got to meet a kid and a lamb. We have been learning the names of different baby animals in school this week and F2 have been writing about our farm trip.
The children of F2 have been doing some fantastic investigating about ice. First we observed melting ice in our classroom: what it looked like, felt like, talking about how it was changing and what happened when we touched it with our hands. Then we received a letter from Stick Man: his three stick children were stuck in the ice! We planned our own experiment, thinking about what we know about how ice melts and planned three different places to try to melt the ice quickly. We then made predictions as to where the ice would melt fastest, giving reasons. We have also extended our learning by experimenting with freezing some other things such as coffee and yoghurt, predicting whether or not they would freeze.
In science, the children have been learning about levers. We created our own catapults to demonstrate how a fulcrum works and tested them to see which catapult was the most effective.
This week in Science, Year 4 have been learning all about bees and how important they are to our world. We have learnt about the different types of bees that there are, how they help to pollinate flowers and crops and how they make honey. We have even had a chance to taste some local honey! The children then researched some more into how bees help us and how we can help bees. Once they had gathered all their information and research, the children made a fact file all about bees to consolidate their learning.
In F2 we are learning all about minibeasts! We have talked about different minibeasts, observing the details in photos and making pictures of them. We have been solving minibeast “What am I?” puzzles and writing our own. We have been finding information from non-fiction books and learning lots of different things. We have started to learn about different habitats and we have made a bug hotel for minibeasts outdoors. We are looking forwards to doing lots of minibeast hunting around our school grounds!
In Science this half term, we have been studying changes – both reversible and irreversible. We have been doing several investigations to show this. We have looked how mixing baking soda and vinegar and create carbon dioxide and we proved this by showing how it can inflate a balloon when we mix them. We also looked at creating a new material when we mixed warm milk and white vinegar.
This week in Science, Year 3 have been investigating the strengths of different types of magnets. We tested metal bar magnets, plastic bar magnets, small horseshoe magnets and large horse shoe magnets. We investigated how many paper clips each magnet could hold.
In science this week, we have been investigating how light travels and how shadows are formed. The children worked in groups to make short videos to explain how light enables us to see the world around us. They also created silhouettes to investigate how shadows change according to distance from the light source and why this happens.
This week in F1 we have been very busy learning all about Minibeast Habitats. We have started to create a minibeast hotel in our outdoor area using pots, boxes and natural materials. We have also made our very own homes for minibeasts and chose which creature it might be best suited for. We looked for bugs outside using the binoculars and were lucky enough to find a snail, ladybird and beetle who are now our first hotel customers! We used checklists to help us find the minibeasts and also had lots of fun exploring the different creatures hidden in our slime tray outdoors this week! We have also been working hard to learn some new vocabulary linked to our topic and try and remember to use our new words in conversations in class! What a super science learning week we have had!
In Science this week, the children in Year 1 have been considering how they can encourage more birds to visit the school grounds. The children decided that we should feed the birds.
In Science this week, the children in Year 1 have been considering how they can encourage more birds to visit the school grounds. The children decided that we should feed the birds.
The children had great fun in writing a set of instructions containing imperative verbs, then following their instructions on to make a successful bird feeder. Take a look at the different bird feeders that we have made and hung in the trees for the birds to enjoy.
Emma has been busy baking delicious gingerbread men and growing onions and beans. She has been checking on them everyday to see how much they have grown.
William has been hard at work on his DT project researching different food groups and calories and their benefits to the human body. He has then written a set of instructions for making a burger before following them to produce this delicious meal. Apparently, the best part was the eating. Being a burger expert I can agree that it looks amazing!
Some more brilliant home learning this time from the children in year 1. They have been finding out Eugenie Clark and the fascinating underwater creatures, producing magnificent artwork in the style of Kadinsky, finding out about old toys by asking Grandparents what they used to play with in the 1960s
and getting well under researching everybody’s favourite food for their science work. Miss Davies is extremely impressed with your hard work. Keep it up.
Eugenie Clark Information Video
Isabella and Jasmine continue to be busy keeping up with their home learning. Isabella has produced a fantastic report all about St. George, whilst Jasmine has been finding out where our food comes from. Well done girls and keep up the hard work.
Another array of brilliant examples of the home learning taking place by the children of St. Mary’s. Some of you are getting really stuck and look like you are really enjoying yourselves. Miss Davies, Mrs Farrell and Mr McQuillan are really impressed with your work and effort you have put in. Ethan has been busy making pyramids and sunflowers linked to his science and English whilst Jasmine looks like she has been having fun finding out all about mini-beasts. In year 4 Florence has produced some fantastic work on the teeth and Isabelle has also been finding out the human body but this time the digestive system. She has also produced some brilliant writing making use of expanded noun phrases.
We have even more fantastic examples of your home learning being sent in. Matteo has been hard at work with his maths and English, whilst Caleb and Luca have bee hard at work planting seeds, drawing sunflower pictures and finding out funfacts. Finally, Bobby and Aria have been producing some fantastic artwork and enjoying their maths. Keep up the hard work.
More fantastic work from year 3 who have been investigating and drawing how your garden grows and writing in heiroglyphics and drawing maps of Egypt. Mrs Farrell is so impressed with your brilliant work and enthusiasm. Keep it up.
More brilliant examples of home-learning from the children of St. Mary’s who are getting thoroughly involved with the work set on the school website. From planting and observing seeds, looking at the differences between leaves and also finding out about our patron saint to celebrate St. George’s day. Fantastic work by all of you. Keep it up and keep the pictures coming in.
Wow! The children of St. Mary’s are certainly getting stuck into their home learning and producing some amazing English, maths and lots of other amazing activities. Orlaith and James have been busy getting stuck into their maths and English work whilst the Days have been exceptionally busy making, baking and creating. Meanwhile, Josh has just received his caterpillars in the post and is looking forward to see their life-cycle first hand to match this terms topic of Spring and growth. Keep up the hard work and sending in your brilliant activities. All the teachers and staff love finding out about what you have been up to.
Some more fantastic examples of the work and activties children have been undertaking at home from keeping up with their phonics, handwriting, maths and researching and learning about the solar system to perfecting their skills on the perfecting their circus skills. Thanks for letting us know what you are up to and keep the updates coming in.
At 10am tomorrow Chester Zoo will be having a virtual zoo day. Once their virtual gates open there timetable is as follows:
10:00 ???? Red pandas ????
11:00 ???? Rothschild’s giraffes ????
12:00 ???? Asian elephants ????
13:00 ???? Butterflies ????
14:00 ???? Sun bears ????
14:30 ???? Sumatran tigers ????
14:45 ???? Humboldt penguins ????
16:00 ???? Aquarium* ????
They have stated that there may be some surprises too!
Follow the the link:
Below is an entire list of websites offering free subscriptions due to the school closure
As part of our winter topic, the children of EYFS have been investigating ice. In nursery the children have enjoyed playing with ice in the water trays and the small world area, we even tried some frozen paints! We used describing words looked at how the ice was changing throughout the day. The children of F2 have been very hands on too. We have investigated freezing and melting, describing the changes that we have seen and thinking about why the ice is melting. We than experimented with freezing different things such as orange juice and jelly to see if those would freeze too.
Then disaster struck: we found three Stick Men stuck inside blocks of ice! We thought carefully about how to melt the ice to rescue them. We knew that we needed heat, so placed one on a radiator, one under a light and one outside. The children predicted which block of ice would melt first. We are happy to say that all of the Stick Men were eventually freed!
This half term in Nursery we have been very busy learning all about Winter. We have used our senses to look for signs of Winter outside and discuss the changes we have seen.
In Literacy we have focussed on the books ‘Say hello to the snowy animals’ and ‘Lost and Found.’ We have been working hard on developing our mark-making skills practising different patterns each week and also thinking carefully about the initial sounds in words we can hear. The children have helped to create story maps of each story and also innovated the stories to change and add our own pages and endings.
In phonics we have focused on alliteration and played lots of fun games to get us tuned into hearing the initial sounds of words. The children have especially loved making our own silly soup!
In Maths we have continued to focus on numbers to 5 but also been working on suing some new vocabulary to describe quantities- ‘more, ‘less’ and ‘same’. The children have enjoyed singing new counting songs and rhymes around our polar animal theme and have also been practising counting other things that can’t be moved such as jumps and claps.
We have been thinking a lot about changes we can see outside during Winter and also exploring ice in different forms. The children have discussed clothes to wear in Winter weather and also learnt the names of some arctic animals. We found out that Penguins are from the South Pole and what it is like there. We have also celebrated Chinese New year and tried some yummy Chinese food. The children enjoyed making lanterns and finding out about the Zodiac calendar and animal race.
In R.E we have been getting to know Jesus and how he showed love to other’s. We have learnt about some of the miracles he performed and also thought about how we can show our love and be kind to others.
We have loved our new weekly dance lesson in the hall, practising some basic movements and also listening carefully to instructions. The children have mastered taking off/ putting on their shoes and socks in record time! Their favourite activity was singing ‘sleeping bunnies’ but changing the names and movements to some of the arctic animals we have learnt about in class.
In PSHE we have been learning about how we are all special and unique and the children have been able to think about what makes them who they are. They particularly enjoyed making their ‘I am special crowns’.
Outdoor learning has been fun with lots of discussions around the Winter weather we have experienced and also the signs of winter in the environment. Children have been busy making winter soups in the mud kitchen, fixing things in our new tool station and dressing the dolls ready for the winter weather.
Our next topic is ‘Under the Sea’ with a special trip to the Sea life Centre planned for 10th March. We will also be beginning our ‘Little Biker’s course in school each Friday next half term where children will learn to ride a balance bike.
What a great start to 2020 it has been in F1. Have a lovely February half term everyone 🙂
Continuing their science topic on forces, Year 5 this week tested how much force would be needed in order to move a variety of footwear and see what resistance was created through friction caused by the soles. The children used forcemeters to pull the shoes and see how much force was needed. After their predictions, the children came up with some surprising results.
Year 3 have been learning about Light and Shadows this half term and have really enjoyed experimenting with different light sources, reflections and shadows. Last week the children created shadow puppet shows to explain all they have learnt in this topic and had fantastic subject knowledge.
During their science unit on forces Year 5 have been learning about a variety of different forces. Last week they studied the relationship between weight and mass and used forcemeters to test and this week they studied air resistance. Their challenge was to come up with the best possible parachute design so that a person would fall slowly and safely to the ground. The class had some very interesting ideas and a range of shapes of sizes but they were also very careful to ensure that it was a fair test. By the end they had a good understanding abut which shapes and sizes made the best parachutes and why.
Our current topic in F2 is winter. We have been reading a non-fiction book about winter and also used the internet to find winter facts. We have been looking for signs of winter in our school environment and comparing winter to the other seasons. You can help your child in their learning by talking to them about signs of winter: perhaps you could go for a winter walk or explore your back garden. How does it look different to the Autumn time?
One thing that we learnt from our non-fiction book is that birds struggle to find food in the winter time as the trees are bare and also the ground can freeze, making finding worms quite tricky. We followed a set of instructions to make our very own bird feeders to help the birds in our school grounds. We used the words ‘first’, ‘then’, ‘next’ and ‘finally’ in our instructions. We all had fun getting very messy! We hope that the birds will enjoy visiting our school this winter.
The children of F2 have enjoyed exploring light and dark in the discovery area during this half term. We began by looking at lots of different interesting objects, describing them and sorting them into groups of “dull” and “shiny”. Next we added in some light sources such as torches and Christmas lights. The children explored the difference between shiny objects and light sources. Then we introduced our dark box – the children made predictions as to which objects that they thought that they would be able to see when placed in the dark box. The children gave their reasons for their predictions using the word “because”. Now our investigators are enjoying testing out their predictions in our discovery area.
Linked to their ‘Healthy Bodies’ science unit, Year 6 have been learning about the effects of exercise on our bodies. Checking our pulses and our heart rates when sitting, walking, jogging, doing star jumps and then sprinting, the children could see the difference in our heart rates during each activity. We also looked at the reasons, with the regards the circulatory system, for the increase when carrying out more rigorous activity.
This term Year 3 are learning about rocks, soils and fossils. This week we have started to explore different characteristics of rocks by looking closely at ‘Sweetie Rocks’. The children were all given a range of different sweets and had to classify the sweets into groups according to different criteria. The class really enjoyed the activity and used fantastic vocabulary to describe each ‘Sweetie Rock’.
This term Year 4 are learning about living things. With millions of different plant and animal species in the world, we have starting learning how to sort according to a range of criteria and ask appropriate questions to create classification keys. This week we began building our skills by classifying biscuits and thinking carefully about the question we ask.
Year 5 have continued their science unit by investigating which everyday substances were soluble in water. After planning their investigation they donned their lab coats and got to work. They acquired some interesting results and came to some fantastic s using their scientific understanding.
In EYFS our young learners have all been very engaged by our recent “Space” theme. In F2 we have been spending time designing and making rockets in a variety of ways. We have looked at lots of photos of rockets in books and on the computer. We have taken time to design our rockets, thinking about what we want them to look like. We have used lots of different materials: using 2D shapes, junk modelling, using various construction materials indoors, plus using the tyres and crates outside. We have even used musical instruments to give our rockets some fantastic sound effects!
In year 5 we have started our new science unit investigating materials. The children were given their new knowledge organisers and set straight to work sorting objects
based on their properties and finding definitions for various words. Following this they then tested the objects for hardness, permeability, flexibility, transparency and magnetism before finalyy discussing if they were fit for purpose.
As part of their science Year 5 investigated how craters may be created on the moon and what effect their height may have on them. They used flour and cocoa as the moon’s surface and balls as the meteors before dropping them from various heights and investigating their results.
The children in F2 are having lots of fun engaging in our Spring and growing topic. We have read non fiction books about the season and looked for signs of Spring outside. We had a special trip to the farm to see some newborn animals and have written some fantastic recounts. We are spending lots of time in our class thinking about growing plants. We have been looking at the roots and veins of plants and made some observational drawings. We have also planted some cress and have been watching it as it grows, recording changes in our cress diaries.
We found some strange beans in our classroom … then one morning, a beanstalk grew! We have enjoyed guessing what could be at the top. We have been reading the story of Jack and the Beanstalk. We have retold the story using our small world figures and roleplay. We have sequenced the events of the story too, using story language. We will be retelling the story using a story map, then changing some elements to make our own story.
In maths we have been adding and subtracting in different ways: using objects, numicon shapes, fingers and counting on and back. We have been doubling by making ladybird doubles with the same amount of spots on each side. We have also been halving groups of magic beans between our teddy bears. We are continuing to practise counting backwards from 20 and have enjoyed some fun aiming games outside finding the number 1 fewer than a number.
We had a fantastic time visiting Cockfields farm. We held rabbits, guinea pigs and chickens. We fed baby goats with bottles of milk and even gave the tortoises a bath! We had lots of fun with our friends learning about how to look after the farm animals. We fed the barn animals including llamas, pigs, sheep, goats and reindeer. Which animal was your favourite?
In year 2 we have been busy planting lettuce seeds as part of our science topic – Young Gardeners. We had to read the seed packets carefully to make sure that we were planting them in the correct conditions and are now carefully taking care of them. Hopefully we will have enough for a salad soon!
In EYFS we have been on a minibeast hunt! We found out information about different minibeasts from around the world. We talked learnt that different minibeasts are suited to live in different places, or habitats. We talked about where we live, the creatures we see and the places that we are likely to find them. We then made predictions about the sort of minibeasts that we might find on a bug hunt in our school. We hunted in all of the different nooks and crannies in our school grounds, recording what we found and where we found it on a table, and taking photographs. We had lots of fun as we explored.
Year 5 have had great fun during science week, finding out about nucleation. This involved creating diet coke and mentos geysers. These geysers are caused by a process called nucleation, where the carbon dioxide in the soda is attracted to the small bumps on the surface of the Mentos. That creates so much pressure that the soda goes flying up into the air quite spectacularly. Mr Clarke volunteered to release the mentos into the bottle whilst Mrs Moran stood at a safe distance taking the photos.
During Science Week, Year 4 have been learning how shadows are formed. By drawing around the shadow of one of the children at different times during the morning, we could see how the position and size of the shadow had changed. We are learning that this due to the fact that as the earth rotates the sun appears to change position in the sky.
Year 5 have been learning about Space and have been finding out about the moon’s surface. This week, they planned an investigation to find how craters are formed and whether the distance a meteorite is away its surface, impacted on the size of the crater made. After ensuring it was a fair test and they had a clear method, each group worked accurately to measure and their record what they found out. Each group then imputed their results into a spreadsheet so we could work the class averages and draw a conclusion. As most children predicted, their results showed that the further a meteorite is away from the moon’s surface, the bigger the crater it will make. The experiment really showed the children the importance of comparing results and repeating an experiment more than once- just like real scientists do!
Year 6 began their new science unit this week on electricity. They tested out different circuits and investigated which would work and which wouldn’t to refresh their memory.
