Class LH and Class JT wriggle and crawl around the mere

This week Class LH and Class JT visited the mere to launch the new topic of “Wriggle and Crawl”.

We had a lovely day with the Suffolk Wildlife Trust who showed us and shared lots of information about the habitats by the mere.  We talked about invertebrates and what was special about them before setting off to do our activities.  When we went hunting for the invertebrates, we had an identification chart to recognise the number of legs and shapes of their bodies. 

The mere dipping was great fun and we all managed to find a variety of creatures such as hog louse, water boatmen, damsel fly nymph and great diving beetle.  In Class LH, there was even a small fish that was found!   In the woods, the children located cards with unusual facts about minibeasts written on about them such as…Did you know that the older the snail the more coils it has on it?   Also did you know that flies smell with their feet?   After that, we then went exploring and hunting for minibeasts under tree stumps, inside the bark, in the grasses.  We found millipedes, wood louse, spiders, slugs and worms.  At the end of the session, we played a game of making ourselves into different invertebrates with specific number of legs. 

Thank you to Charlie and Catherine from the Suffolk Wildlife Trust who really inspired the children and helped them with their learning.

Year 6 Cooking

Lovely aromas have been wafting along the top corridor when VWe have been having cookery lessons with Mrs Jenkins. The children have been making their own pastry, chopping vegetables and devising their own fillings.

“Absolutely delicious” said Mrs Colchester after being lucky enough to sample one of the quiches.

“I really liked learning how to make them” said Faith “as I thought you made them very differently.”

Cameron told us how much fun he had making them and the bit he liked best was filling up the pastry cases.

Year 5 Maths - Using a compass to give directions.

Today, the year 5s from Class AJ joined Class MV for Maths.

The children were applying their knowledge of angles, which they had begun before Easter, to making and using a compass. The children worked out which direction North was and begun to draw their own compass. They added in the degrees accurately for North, East, South and West as well as North East, South East, South West and North West.

In small groups, they then began to give instructions to their peers on where to start or which direction to face, then tell them which way to turn (clockwise or anti-clockwise) and how many degrees. They worked extremely well together using their Mathematic vocabulary with great fluency.

Once the sun joined our lesson, the children checked the accuracy of their compass by looking at the direction their shadow fell. The children recalled their knowledge of light and shadows from the Autumn Term to explain why the shadows should form on the West point of their compass!

Great work today Year 5!

Swap or Sale event

On the last day of term the Eco- councillors held their first ‘Swap or Sale’ event. The children had created banners and were enthused about the sale and the potential it had. Many councillors came in and helped create a mini advertising campaign to promote the event in school. They prepared wide array of clothing in the Hall and it was lovely to see children coming along and swapping/ donating to such an important cause: the Ukraine humanitarian crisis. Additionally, we were doing our bit to reduce clothing waste and help others, getting more wear out of some stunning clothes. The councillors helped collect donations and provided smiley faces to front the effort. 

They raised a super £62.80 which is being donated directly to the Red Cross appeal: thank you to all the children and adults for attending, donating and supporting the event. We are planning on holding another event towards the end of term, whereby we hope to bring clothes in for collection during the week of the sale and offer uniform items for sale, too. If you felt able to contribute, please start saving outgrown items now and we will offer a collection point closer to the event date- details to follow when finalised.

Thank you for your generosity, 

The Eco- Council 

Year 5 Easter Service

Thank you to everyone who has supported Year 5 in their Easter Service this year. The children were amazing and have made us very proud. 

Year 5 wish you all a very Happy Easter! 

Class LH fledge all over Robin Wood

Sadly, this was our last week at Robin Wood and the weather was sunny but cold to start off with although it did get quite warm by the end of the morning, unlike last week where we had snow and hail!!

We finished off our focus of birds by understanding the parts of the life cycle of birds.  ‘Hatchlings’ are when the birds are born and have no feathers.  Then the feathers appear and they are called ‘nestlings’.  After this, when they start to look for food, they are called 'fledglings'.  We played a game where we had to be in our nests of 5 fledglings and find as many worms as possible.  Some of the worms were not good for the birds and may have been poisonous (yellow and red wool).  In our groups, we started to hunt for healthy worms (green, brown and beige wool) all over Robin Wood to take them back to our nests.

When we got busy this week, we made jewellery and key rings from Elder wood; there was a puppet show; a huge slide was built for the balls; some of us had a go at lighting the fairy blankets with the Dragon sneezers and also the amazing den making. 

We lit a fire to cook a lovely treat of hot cross buns on the open fire.  After this we had a quiet time for reflection before writing on a leaf something that we have either enjoyed or learnt during this term at Forest Schools.

We, of course, finished with our favourite game of Eagle Eyes. 

We have learnt so much and experienced so many different activities during this term.   It has been wonderful and a HUGE thank you to Mrs Waddell for making it so much fun and for giving us such lovely experiences where we have learnt so much and challenged ourselves. 

Year 2 step back in time

 

Class LH and Class LC visited a Victorian museum to try and work out and recognize some of the artefacts that were used in and around Victorian houses. 

There were some great ideas but some of the more obscure objects included these suggestions:-  

·         The butter paddles could have been graters,  scrapers , chopping things or a musical item. 

·         The carpet beater was suggested as a bug catcher, a rowing paddle or a bubble blower. 

·         Some thought that the mangle could have been used for printing or a pasta maker.

·         The chamber pot could have been used as a fish bowl or for drinking soup from. 

·         The ceramic hot water bottle could have been used as a flower vase, a bird house or an ink well.

·         The wash board was a musical instrument … and we know of course that some skiffle bands do use them for that!!

It was a really interesting visit using the artefacts and a great way to finish off the topic of ‘School Days’ learning about what life was like at home for the children after they had finished their day at school.

Virtuosic Violinists!

 We are hugely proud of all of our musicians at Sir Robert Hitcham's but yesterday it was our wonderful violinists who wowed us with their performances in their afternoon concert with their brilliant teacher - Cal Fell. They all played beautifully demonstrating fantastic confidence, skill, tone and musicality! Thank you for sharing your musical talents with us all. Here are some photos which hopefully give an idea of the gorgeous atmosphere in this concert. Thank you Cal for organising this magical event.

School Transport - Reminder to Opt-in for September