Growing cress - the results!

Recently we started an experiment to see what cress seeds need to grow. We put some seeds on a plate and put one plate on the windowsill but gave it no water, one plate in the cupboard where it had no light (but it did have water) and put one plate on the windowsill with water. Today we talked about our predictions and found out what had happened.

Plate one had light, no water - what do you think happened to it?
We said, "they won't grow because they need water." (Harry) and "it won't grow because it hasn't got any water." (Fallon).

Here is a photo of plate one. What has happened?

The seeds haven't grown at all! That tells us that seeds need water to grow.

Plate two had water, no light - what do you think happened?

We said, "it won't grow because it hasn't got any sunshine." (Emily), "it maybe won't grow." (Amber) and "it will grow." (Finlay).

Here is a photo of plate two. What has happened?

The cress has grown but it's yellow! This tells us that plants need sunlight to turn green.

Plate three had light and water - what do you think happened?

We said, "it will grow bigger." (Charlie), "it will grow because it has sunlight and water." (Fallon) and "they will grow because it's got water and sun." (Olivia)

Here is a photo of plate three. What has happened?

The cress has grown green! This tells us that with water and sunlight, plants can grow properly.

We made notes about what we found out on the board and talked about it.

In her Play and Learn time Fallon decided to draw the results of our experiment. She looked closely at the three plates and drew what she could see. With some support she sounded out the words to make notes on what we had found out. Fantastic work Fallon, well done!

Autumn Art

This morning we were learning all about the colours of autumn and how to use different materials to create interesting autumn art.

First we went outside to explore the leaves on the playground. We looked at the different shapes, sizes and colours of the leaves.

We talked about the differences between the leaves and decided that they must come from different trees.

Then we used the leaves to make some fantastic autumn art! We mixed colours of paint and explored how we could make different shades of red, brown, yellow and orange. We used the paint to paint the leaves and then print onto our paper.

We had some pictures of leaves to colour, but instead of using colouring pencils we learnt how to use chalk. To make chalk look really good you have to put some chalk on the paper and then use your finger to gently rub it. This blends the chalk in and you can blend different colours together. This was good for leaves with different shades in them.

We also learnt how to do leaf rubbing. We had to put the leaf underneath our paper and then rub crayon over the top. We chose the right colour crayon for our leaf and had to make sure we kept the crayon flat or it wouldn't work.

Taking photos

This afternoon we were learning how to take a 'good' photo. First we had to decide what makes a good photo. To help us we looked at some photos and discussed whether they were 'good' or 'bad' photos. Some of the things that made photos not look good was when people's heads weren't in the photo, the photo was blurry, a finger was in front of the lens or the photo wasn't really of anything in particular. We came up with a list of success criteria for taking a good photo and looked at how to use the iPad to take photos.

Then we had time to use the iPads to take photos, thinking about all the things we had to do to take good photos. Here are some of the photos we took - do you think they are good photos? Did we remember all our photography rules?

What do you think would make these photos better?

After we had taken our photos we came back together and shared our photos with the rest of the group. We discussed which photos were really good and why and how we could improve on some of them.

We're going to try and take more photos in class of things we've done - we could take photos of our models, pictures we've drawn or of our friends!

Being safe on the road

Today we read a story called Teddy Takes a Tumble. It's about a teddy who doesn't have his seatbelt on in the car and falls over when the car has to stop suddenly. We talked about how to stay safe in the car by always wearing a seatbelt and then discussed some other ways of staying safe on the road when you are a pedestrian - someone who is walking.

We agreed that you shouldn't run near the road and you shouldn't walk too close to the curb. When you need to cross you have to "look left and right" (Emily) and "listen for cars that are coming" (Dexter).

We drew a road on the playground and practised walking alongside the road safely and then crossing safely. We talked about different types of crossing and how you always have to make sure a car has stopped before you cross. Sometimes at crossings there are signs with green and red men - red means stop and green means go, but you still have to check to make sure it's safe.

Then we got a car out and practised crossing the road safely when a car has stopped. We drew some more road on with chalk, including roundabouts and crossings, and got the rest of the bikes and scooters out. We took it in turns to be drivers and pedestrians and made sure we were being safe on the road!

We dressed up as police officers and practised stopping the traffic. We had to keep an eye out for people not obeying the rules of the road or being safe - if people didn't drive safely we had to write them a ticket! We also made some 'stop' signs - here is Dexter with his stop sign - brilliant writing Dexter!

A special visitor!

This morning we had a very special visitor in our class... a little chick called Nancy! She belongs to Charlie, and Charlie's mummy brought her in so we could all see her. Charlie told us about her and how she hatched from an egg. He helps to look after her at home by feeding her and making sure she's safe. We had to be very gentle when we held Nancy so we didn't frighten her.

Sukkot

Yesterday we learnt all about Sukkot, which is the Jewish harvest festival. During Sukkot Jewish people build a shelter in their gardens called a Sukkah. They decorate it with leaves, branches and fruit and they eat their meals inside it. Being in the Sukkah reminds Jewish people of long ago, when God looked after their people who were living in the desert. It also reminds them of the wonderful world God made. They use Sukkot as a time to say thank you, like Christians use Harvest time to remember all the things God has made for us.

We built a Sukkah inside the classroom and sat in it to eat our snack. When the wind had died down we explored making a Sukkah outside. We have also made some models of Sukkah shelters by decorating, cutting and sticking.

The Little Red Hen

This morning we have been learning how to create a story map and use it to help us retell a story. We learnt the story of the Little Red Hen, who grows some corn to make bread - but her friends don't help her at all! When the bread is baked, they all want to help her eat it - but the little red hen eats it herself!

We talked about whether she should have shared the bread or not. Some people thought she should have shared, because sharing is a kind thing to do and the animals were hungry. Others thought she was right not to share it because the other animals hadn't helped her to make it. There isn't a right or wrong answer - this is your opinion and we can all have different opinions to each other!

We made story maps either with playdough or by drawing pictures and writing captions. We had to make sure we had the parts of the story in the right order or the story wouldn't make sense!

To test out our story maps we used them to retell the story. If we were able to use them to retell the story, we'd been successful - and we were!

In our Play and Learn time we used the playdough to make different characters from the story...

We made special cone-shaped Little Red Hens...

We created scenes from the story on the interactive whiteboard, adding the right characters and props to the scene...

And we made some story maps of our own. Harry made a fantastic story map of We're Going on a Bear Hunt!