Friday 24 May 2013

Reading in Year 4

Reading in Year 4 is very important to us.  We are currently enjoying a new initiative, paid for by the school, that allows us to access a great range of books that are managable and just for us.  We each have our own log in for 'Bug Club'.

Our book corner has proved popular and especially the elephant that lives in there, eager to be sat upon, by keen readers.
 
 
All bug club books have comprehension questions that need to answered so that children can earn points to spend at their will.
 
 
Alongside Bug Club, we have a range of other activities that children can engage with.
 
Evie has completed a word search based on her spellings for the week.
From reading with adults to quiet reads and activities that help aid our skills, we are busy learning this life changing skill everyday.

As a challenge, Mr Hayman set children to do some 'extreme' reading.  We have invited children to get photos of themselves reading in extreme ways.  So far we've had:
Upside down reading
Underwater reading
Pyjama reading
Riding camels and reading
Eating and reading
Playing cornets whilst reading.

We aim to set an example for the rest of the school.  Send in some photo's of your extreme reading Year 4 and, if appropriate, see it appear on the 'Extreme Reading' blog.

For this blog though....

What's your favourite book and why?  Why should we read it?  How will our lives change once we have?

We look forward to your recommendations!

Thursday 23 May 2013

Post SAT Celebration

To reward the children for all of their hard work during the SATs, we had a fantastic SAT celebration party today! We started off with a treasure hunt around the school grounds....
 
 
After all of that hard work, we then had a chance to make our own fantastic creations in the knickerbocker parlour. We had ice cream, lots of sauces, chocolate drops, marshmallows, cookies, strawberries, Skittles, Smarties.... and lots more! Some of us even went for second helpings!







Later on in the day, we had some party food to boost our energy levels in preparation for parachute games!


 






Wednesday 22 May 2013

Science Day- Sound

 
 
Today we had a fun science day.
 
The children learnt that sounds are made when objects or materials vibrate. They looked at how changing the vibrations could make sounds that were louder or softer. They also looked at how changing the vibrations can change the pitch of a sound, making it higher or lower. The vibrations can travel from a sound source better through some materials and so the children decided to investigate this further.
 
The children had 4 different activities that they rotated around:
1. Investigating how to change the pitch, when twanging a ruler.
2. Investigating how to make different sounds louder, quieter, higher and lower.
3. Investigating which material muffles sound the best.
4. Using an interactive game, answering lots of questions about sound.
 
 
Investigating which chime bar has the highest/lowest pitch
Ruler experiment

The Rhino gets a new look!

Year 6 were very lucky to get their "hands on" the the rhino first today! We've been busy decorating it as part of our Go Rhinos project in support of Marwell Zoo.



Monday 20 May 2013

Bird box - we have birds!


Great news! The eggs in our bird box have hatched.

Mrs Goto has posted some fantastic pictures - click the link below to go to our Reception blog!

http://kingscopseyearr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/bird-pics.html

Or... have a look at the live video!

http://microsites2.segfl.org.uk/view_page.php?id=2767

Plant Experiments

We've set up various plant experiments to investigate what plants need to stay healthy and grow.
 
The girls decided to investigate the amount of air that each plant receives.
 
Meanwhile, another group began to set up their investigation to see if the colour of the light makes a difference.
 
This group decided to see if the type of soil makes a difference by planting the saplings in sand, stones and paper towel.
 
The boys decided to see whether the amount of water will affect the rate at which the plant grows. So they could calculate how much the plant has grown, they measured each stem at the start of the experiment.
 
 
What are your predictions? What do you think will happen to the plants after a few weeks?

The PCSOs visit Year 6

We were very lucky to have a visit off Felicity and Kirby last week. Our local PCSOs talked to us about the work that they do and how they help to keep our community safe. We also learnt a lot about the laws that apply to our society and how they keep us safe and protect everyone. What did you learn from our talk?
 

We received some fantastic florescent bands to keep us safe when it gets dark.

We also had great fun dressing up in some police uniform!
          

The birds

Such great news. The blue tit eggs hatched over the weekend. We are not sure if all the birds hatched and survived. I spent a lot of time viewing the footage this evening. I spotted at least 9 hungry little mouths to feed. There were 10 eggs so it may be that there are 10 chicks but one was out of shot.

Mum and Dad were very active this evening with both flying in and out of the bird box to get food. The chicks were very hungry, waiting with their mouths open to be fed.

The light at about 6pm seems just about right to get the footage in clear colour. At that time I could really see the colours of our blue tit family. I think at other times the light level is lower so the feed appears to be in black and white.

Let us know what you see when you view the bird box footage.



A Grand Adventure


The Reception trip to Hampshire's Harold Hillier Gardens was a roaring success. The children started off the day with pond dipping. They found loads of creatures including water nymphs, boatmen, tadpoles and newts. After that they spent some time looking really closely at colours. They had to find ten different coloured pieces of petal to decorate their caterpillars. They were careful to use pieces of flowers they found on the ground rather than picking any flowers. Children used words such as paler, darker, lighter and more blue when talking about the colours they found. Then the children went on another walk around. The went over a couple of very wobbly bridges, being careful not to make too much noise in case they disturbed any trolls. Then they fed some fish and went through a bamboo forest before returning to the education centre for a picnic lunch. After they had eaten a good lunch and had a bit of a run around it was time to get on with more learning. They went on a caterpillar walk using their sense of touch to explore trees. Next they spent time matching leaf shapes to the trees that the leaves grow on. Finally they spent time looking up into the tree tops with mirrors and thinking carefully about the creatures who lived there. At the end of the session they went and got back on the coach to return to school. It was a tiring day for everyone. In fact some children were so tired they fell asleep on the journey back home. It was a great day.
 
Thank you to all the helpers who made this trip and our previous trip to the aquarium such a success. Without you we wouldn't have been able to go!
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Friday 17 May 2013

Come and read our sequels.

 
 
Year 5 have worked extremely hard to produce some fantastic stories. The children chose their favourite book by a significant author and had to write a sequel. I am very impressed with Year 5's stories. They really thought about the style of the author and different writing techniques.
 
The children would really like as many people as possible to read the stories. Please post a comment about what you thought of them. They are currently on display in the library so please feel free to pop into the library and have a read!
 
 
Did you enjoy reading our stories?