We have had a snail of a time...

Today, Class AB started their new topic, Wriggle and Crawl. They were given the challenge of creating a home for a snail thinking about what they would need to survive. After a lot of discussion the class concluded that they would need some leaves or greenery to eat, some twigs and stones and some compost. We talked about snails liking damp environments so thought we would add a little water to make sure the compost was damp but not too wet! Come and have a look at our snails in our outside area. We are going to observe them to see any changes that are made inside the tank.

AB Hitchams Hundreds

Class AB took part in Hitchams Hundreds last Friday. Their challenge was to run 100 laps of the field. Unfortunately it was very wet so we only managed 27 laps. We came back to class to have a rethink of what we could do, still on a theme of exercise. We came up with idea of doing 10 different exercises 10 times. These included lunges, press ups, start jumps and cherry pickers. Have a look at our achievements below.

Lunges

Squats

Tuck Jumps

Star Jumps

Press ups

Hitcham's Hundreds - Class VW

Today, VW set about completing their Hitchams’s Hundreds Challenge of listing 100 influential scientific discoveries, inventions or theories. 

Miss. Whipps is still in the process of collating the information but thinks the class have achieved at least 100. 

There were a huge range of discoveries, ranging from Alexander Fleming’s discovery of Penicillin, Jan Ingenhousz’s discovery of photosynthesis (whereby green plants absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen), to Black Holes, the science behind rainbows (Isaac Newton found that the sun’s light hits a prism in order to separate into its individual colours) and infra-red.

A really impressive challenge! Well done Class VW

Class LH reach a century... and more!!

The "Hitcham's Hundred" challenge for Class LH was to see if we could find 100 different ways to make 100.  We used a range of strategies and resources to generate a variety of numbers, such as the hundred square, raffle tickets, number cards, number bonds and number families.  We used addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.  

We had a few games to play such as "Snail 100", "Guess my number", "Guess my partner number to 100" and "Missing numbers".  Some of the children created their own 'Snakes and Ladders' using the 100 square. 

Well done to Harry who completed the "Make a 100" maze challenge using dice and 1 digit numbers and also to Matilda and India for persevering and trying different routes. 

Playing "Snail 100"

"Snakes and Ladders" and "Missing numbers"

Using number cards to subtract from 100

Showing the inverse operations of addition and subtraction. 

The children actually came up with just over 300 ideas to make 100 and although there were one or two repetitions,  they were amazed with just how many they came up with.  Well done Class LH on great determination and perseverance.  You did it!!

Year 5 Pharaoh Topic

To conclude our ‘Pharaoh’ topic, year 5 completed a carousel of activities on Friday morning. 

The children made flat bread with dips, experimenting with different flavours. 

They conducted some research on Cleopatra VII, finding out about her life and different stories about her death. 

Finally, the children got into small groups and were posed with the following question: animals with long life expectancies have longer gestation periods. They had to hypothesise as to whether they thought this was true or not, giving reasons and supporting their statements with known examples. They were then given a set of data and asked to draw comparative bar charts. We talked about how the life expectancy may differ for a wild animal compared to a captive/ domesticated animal, and evaluated the investigation design. We concluded that using the data we had in front of us, the statement was quite generalised and that it would have been helpful to compare specific breeds of a certain animal.  

Ancient Egyptians at Norwich Castle Museum

Last Thursday, year 5 classes visited Norwich Museum to learn more about the Ancient Egyptians. 

The children looked at some beautiful artefacts, most of which were approximately 3000 years old. They learnt about the mummification process and were lucky enough to see a real Egyptian mummy. 

The children also had the opportunity to dress in clothes similar to those worn by Egyptian villagers, imagining they were living at the time. 

he children learnt about the significance and design of jewellery and created their own necklaces to take home. 

Overall, a wonderful day was had by all, albeit a little on the warm side!

"Budding" photographers

Today was the start of the photography club for a new group - Year 2.  The children examined the cameras and talked about the different functions of all the buttons.  They then had a practise with their partners using the zoom button - in and out and getting used to holding the camera without it wobbling to take a photo.   

After this, the children set off in earnest to the trees on the front playground to photograph some of the buds and the flowers which were just developing.  The children were very proud of their close up photos as it was quite tricky in the gentle breeze.  They used the zoom function to get a real close up of their chosen buds or flowers.  

Some of the children also took photos of the daisies and dandelions on the ground, and the bark on the trees with all the undulating textures.  

We then all chose our favourite close up photo that we had taken and had a "walking gallery" where we looked at our best photos.  We talked about why and how they made a good close up photo.  

A great start to the budding photographers!

Playtime Fun!

Just a few shots of the KS1 and Reception children using the new play equipment this morning.  
A big thank you to the Friends for the money raised through their fundraising events that have paid for all of this.

Forest Schools

A group of children enjoyed their first session at Robin Wood today. We learnt the Code of Conduct, before playing a game of '1,2,3 Where are you?' The children found lots of interesting things whilst taking part in a scavenger hunt. They then had fun exploring and investigating in the woodland. After that we gathered to enjoy snack and talk about the morning. What a lovely morning we had in the sunshine!

Hitcham's Hundreds

We are getting ready for our Hitcham's Hundreds whole school sponsored fundraising event next Friday (27 April) to raise money to replace the worn out, damaged & out of date books (eg Reading Schemes, Free Readers, Topic etc) for all the children.  

As pupils being in their sponsorship forms to show the teachers, we will add these numbers to the totals on this display outside the hall.