Fun at the farm!

This morning we went on a trip to Ledgemore Farm in Great Gaddesden to see the new lambs and support our learning on growing and spring. It was a beautiful sunny day and as soon as we arrived we were lucky enough to see a lamb being born! Soon after that the farmers came and helped to deliver two more lambs. We spent some time looking at the new lambs and then split into two groups to explore some more things around the farm.

We saw sheep and lambs inside and stroked a little lamb. We learnt that in summer the sheep's wool will be sheared off. It will then be sent away to be cleaned and made into things like woolly jumpers!

We learnt that the sheep have numbers on them so they know which lamb belongs to which sheep. At Ledgemore Farm they have around 600 lambs born every year! We looked at some of the food the sheep are given to eat and saw the lambs drinking some milk.

Then we went to see the chickens. The farmer put some food out and the chickens all came hurrying out to peck at it and eat it! We talked about chickens laying eggs and how we like to eat our eggs. The chickens on the farm provide about 24 eggs a day between them. We also saw how the top of their water had frozen. Luke explained that it had been cold so the water had turned to ice and become solid. Great use of scientific vocabulary Luke!

Then we went to see the horse in the field and see the lambs one more time. We also enjoyed squelching in the mud!

Thank you very much to Mr and Mrs Cornthwaite for letting us visit them and for taking time out of their day to show us around their farm. Also a big thank you to all our parent helpers - we couldn't have done it without you!

Next week we are going to continue our learning on how animals change and grow and how the natural world changes during springtime - keep watching our blog to find out what we are learning!

Mysterious beans..!

Today when we came in from playtime we found something very strange in our classroom... some mysterious beans! Where did they come from? What will they grow into? We explored the beans using our sense of sight, touch and smell and talked about what to do with them. We decided to plant them to see what will grow!

We know that things grow in soil - but is that the ONLY place something can grow? We decided to find out by conducting an experiment! We decided to plant the beans in bottles with something different in each one. After discussing our ideas we looked outside and inside to find things to put in our bottles.

We put soil in one.

In another one we put sand.

We put stones in this one.

We filled this one with water.

We put some paper in this one.

Finally, we poured rice into this bottle.

Then we had to plant the beans in the bottles! We talked about whether we should just put the bean on top or whether we should push it down so it was underneath the soil, sand etc. We decided that was the best thing to do. Can you guess what happened when we put the bean in the bottle of water?

Then we watered the beans. We didn't put water in the bottle of water though! We have put them on the window sill so we can watch and see what happens. Do you think any of them will grow? What will happen when they do? Will the bean get bigger - or will something else happen?

Exploring growing!

Today we started our new topic, growing! We talked about what 'growing' means and what things grow. We came up with lots of ideas of things that grow such as plants, flowers, people and animals. We explored the new things on our discovery table and looked closely at different plants, including looking at the seeds, stem, petals and roots. Fallon and Emily also did some super writing about what they had seen.

We also have a new class plant to take care of. What do you think we'll have to do to help it grow? Here's a clue!

This afternoon we were learning about living and non-living things. Which group of things do you think contains things that grow?

We came up with lots of ideas about things that don't grow, such as stones, tables, pencils and dolls. Summer also said "seeds won't grow if you don't put water on them" - good thinking Summer!

We sorted some photos of things into two groups - living and non-living. Then we created some living and non-living posters with pictures and labels - we thought of lots of living and non-living things, including birds, dogs, snowmen and puddles! We also used our phonics really well to sound out the words for our labels.

Learning about Purim

Earlier this week we received a letter from a Jewish girl called Riva who told us she was excited about celebrating Purim, playing a greggor and eating Hamantashen. We didn't know what she was talking about, so we had to find out! Riva had sent us some photos, a book about Purim and the story of brave Queen Esther. We acted out the story and looked at and talked about the pictures. We also used an iPad to find out what Hamantashen are - they are a kind of cake with jam in the middle, and they looked delicious!

We made Hamantashen - they were yummy!

We also made some Purim masks and made some shakers. When Jewish people go to the synagogue during Purim they listen to the story of Esther and shake their instruments, called greggors, and make lots of noise when the wicked Haman's name is mentioned! We retold the story of Esther and played our shakers and stamped our feet to make lots of noise when we heard Haman's name!

Posting letters!

This week we have enjoyed exploring our post office role play and have been busy writing and delivering lots of letters!

This morning we wrote some letters to our families and put them in our special envelopes. Then we walked down to the post box and posted them! When do you think our letters will arrive..? We'll have to wait and see!

Fun with post!

Yesterday, Summer and Jack were writing 'postman pat' on the board and talking about what Postman Pat does for his job.

Today when we came into school we found that our role play area has been turned into a post office! We've been busy all morning selling stamps and envelopes, writing and posting letters, making parcels and dressing up as postmen and women - it's their job to collect all the letters and parcels from the post box and deliver them to the right people!

A mysterious parcel..!

This morning we received a mysterious parcel..! We opened it up to find some very strange looking food and a letter from an alien called Vob. He was writing to us from his planet, Sprock, to tell us that he had heard we were learning all about taste and had been eating lots of different food. He sent us some food from his planet to try. It looked very strange!!

We decided to try the food to see what it tasted like. Some of us were very adventurous and tried everything!

We had something fluffy and blue that tasted like mashed potato, something red and soft that tasted like bananas and a green drink that tasted like milk! We wondered what would happen if we mixed the blue and the red food together. We tried it and it made purple! Luke wrote a brilliant letter to Vob, saying "Dear Vob, mix red and blue it makes purple" so now he knows how to make purple food!

In his letter Vob also asked us to think of some new ideas for his meals as he is getting a bit bored of having the same things for dinner all the time. We decided to create some exciting new combinations of food and wrote letters back to tell him about what we had made.

We had rice krispies, cheese and onion crisps, raisins, dolly mixtures, marshmallows, tinned fruit, banana and honey to mix together - we made some very interesting concoctions! When we had mixed it together we tasted it - some of us liked what we had made, while some of us thought Vob would enjoy it more!

What interesting food combinations do you like? Why not try something new - you never know, you might like it as much as we liked our strange new recipes!