West Tisted Countryside Day

On Wednesday Year 3 and Year 4 had a fantastic trip to the beautiful West Tisted Manor Estate to learn about farming and forestry. 

During the day six different aspects of farming and countryside life were on display for the children to learn about and explore. Each activity was led by an expert in their field so the children were able to learn in great detail about the different areas and ask lots of questions.

The first activity for Year 3 was to see the big machinery used on the farm. We learnt the there are many different machines which play a part in cultivating the land, sewing the seeds, fertilising the crops and harvesting them when they are ready. We were all amazed by the size of the machines and by how much technology is involved in making sure everything happens at the right time and in exactly the right place!

An old fashioned tractor compared to a modern tractor

Preparing the land

This machine has to be able to sew seeds of many different shapes and sizes.

The crops have to be looked after with tonnes of fertiliser.

Each crop requires it's own special mix and amount of fertiliser. 

The crops also need protection from pests and diseases.
This machine helps spray them with medicines. 

When they are ready the crops can be harvested.
This machine can harvest a big field in about 30 minutes!

The machine is quickly able to sort the grain from the other parts of the crop.

Apparently the cows like to play pushing games with the hay bales!

Next we learnt about the different crops grown at West Tisted and what they are used for. We had a chance to look at the differences when they are seeds and when they are crops.

We then had a selection of everyday items which we tried to sort into the correct grains.

Linseed was once used just for it's oil but it is now becoming a popular health food.

The children were also invited to try grinding some wheat to make flour.

The final activity of the morning was to find out about the impact deer have on our forests.

All the trees in this picture are 25 years old.
The trees at front have had their growth stunted by deer eating the
main shoot when they were trying to grow.

We played a game where all the children had to collect the four things trees need to grow - sun, water, soil and air. This was easy until some children became deers. If they touched you it meant you were out and could not grow to be a tree.

The antlers of deer become brown from where the deer hit them against the trees.
This can also damage trees and plants.

The damage to these antlers shows some of the dangers to deer in the wild.
They include rubbish, string and electric wiring.

We also looked at the skulls of deers to learn more about what they eat.

 After lunch we met one of the gamekeepers at West Tisted and learnt about how he helps look after some of the animals on the estate. They have lots of pheasants and part of his job to protect them from other animals.

He works very closely with his dog and we were impressed at
how well trained she was.

When the pheasants are young they are protected from predators
such as foxes, by a large fence.

 We then got the chance to have a close up look at some sheep. They were a little nervous about having so many visitors so we had to be really quiet and calm around them.

We learnt about how their wool protects them from the cold and rain.

We used this chart to help identify what types of sheep we thought were at the estate today.

Finally, we got to find out more about owls. We learnt about the different types of owl you might see and how they use their sense of hearing to help them hunt their prey.

This is an owl nesting box. We were very surprised to find out
what the base was covered with!

 Owls eat their food by swallowing it whole. They cannot digest bones and hair, however, so they throw these back up! This is what covers the base of their nests and they are known as owl pellets.

We could see various bones and skulls in the nesting box.

The children had a fantastic day and were talking about the things they had seen and learnt all the way back to school! They all behaved really well and did a great job of representing Kings Copse Primary School.

Thank you to the parents who were able to help on the day and a special thank you to the organisers, staff and volunteers at West Tisted Manor Estate and The Country Trust for hosting such an interesting and engaging day.

Taste Testing

This week, we have been investigating ratios in maths. On Monday, we tried our hand at making different flavoured juices using our knowledge of ratios. 

We each recorded which ratio we were testing first, before measuring out the correct proportions of juice to try.

 We then adapted our ratios depending on which flavours we preferred!

Dance Mat Day!

Recently, we were lucky enough to take part in a dance mat session offered by Solent University to us for free! It was great fun and a fantastic way to exercise!

Rocket Science

Kings Copse Primary School is one of the lucky schools to have been chosen to help complete a very important space investigation!

Rocket Science gave 10,000 UK schools the opportunity to take part in a UK-wide live science experiment to contribute to our knowledge of growing plants in space. 

Two kilograms of rocket (Eruca sativa) seeds were launched on 02 September 2015 with European Space Agency (ESA) astronaut Andreas Mogensen and his crew, arriving on the International Space Station (ISS) two days later. British ESA astronaut Tim Peake took charge of the seeds while on the ISS for his Principia mission starting in December. After being held for about six months in microgravity, the seeds were returned to Earth with astronaut Scott Kelly, in March 2016.

Once the seeds were returned they were distributed to schools. We received 100 seeds that have been on the ISS and 100 seeds that remained on Earth. The seed packets were colour coded, however we were not told which packet contained which seeds.

Gardening Club have been busy looking after the seeds, helping them grow and collecting data for the investigation. This week Year 3 took charge of the seedlings and were asked to collect data about the number of leaves on a random selection of plants from each tray.

We had to make sure we chose plants at random, so we decided to pick numbers out of a pot. 

We then had to count the number of leaves on these plants and work out the average.

We decided to present some of this data in the form of bar charts.

We had a really interesting discussion making predictions about which set of seeds we thought had been into space. Red or blue?

"I think the red ones have been into space because they are a little bit smaller". Liam

"I think the red ones because some haven't grown at all". Pablo

"I think the red seeds have been in space because they look smaller and we learnt that if you don't exercise in space your heart starts to get smaller". Rio

"I think the blue ones have been in the rocket. Maybe space helped them grow better because they didn't have gravity pulling them down". Sam

" The blue ones look like they might have been in space because they are leaning over more". Nyah

"The blue seedlings haven't grown as much, so I think they have been in space. Although they have similar numbers of leaves, the red trays look more like a field". Lucy S

We had a class vote and 17 children thought the red seeds had been in space, whereas 11 thought it was the blue seeds.

What do you think?

Next week we have to count the number of seedlings that are still alive and then send all our data to the Rocket Science investigation team. We are hoping to find out the results in September!