Autumn

Autumn is a time
when leaves fall down.
They make a crunching noise
on the ground.
The leaves turn different colours,
yellow, brown and red.
And conkers fall down
and bang me on the head.
Squirrels collecting acorns
for the winter feed.
Plants have grown very tall
from such a tiny seed.

Hannah 5B

Winter

Winter is the time when Christmas is near,
Winter is the time when it's nearly a new year.
Winter is the time when snow flakes fall,
Winter is the time when I grow tall.
Winter is the time when there's no more sun,
Winter is the time to have some fun.
Winter is the time to give love,
Winter is the time to look more above.
Winter is the time to celebrate,
Winter is the time to open a new gate.

A beautiful day and lots of babies (monkeys, giraffes and a leopard) made this annual trip with the First Years particularly relaxing and memorable! Marwell Zoo is committed to conservation and has an extensive breeding program, so this gave us an opportunity to think about the role of zoos as well as looking at adaptations to particular habitats. The hot, steamy conditions of ‘Tropical World’ house the menacing leaf cutter ants as well as the popular and deadly jewel coloured poison arrow frogs. Outside, many of the animals were sunbathing and highly visible which made a change from previous years! We also spent some time looking at the Madagascan lemurs and the extraordinary Fossa who preys on them.

A fantastic day was had by all Nursery & Pre Prep children at their recent Pet Day. Numerous dogs came to visit including a Rough Collie, a Golden Retriever, a Springer Spaniel, two beautiful cats, Rabbits, hamsters, chicks & even Ozzie, Charlotte Schryver's pony came to see us. Ozzie was amazing & stood perfectly whilst practically every child groomed him! The children were delighted with all the visiting animals & behaved impeccably throughout the day. A very big thank you to all the parents who brought in pets and helped to make this such a memorable occasion.

We were greeted by smiley staff in bright red T-shirts. We knew this was going to be a great day. We went in through barns of horses, chicks, pigs and a herd of alpacas to name a few and then saw the huge selection of activities in the grounds.
There were set show times that we didn’t want to miss and lots of supervised activities for the very adventurous or those requiring a more gentle experience.
Tovi and Thomas went on the stage to feed the sheep and Daisy the cow ate lots of oranges… and wouldn’t leave the stage without being given yet another orange!
Bug ride zoomed around the park and you really had to hold on to your hats, well actually the steering wheel, we were soaked by pirates shooting water at us!
Crazy golf was a challenge with the hidden bumps and curves and a variety of styles were observed to get a hole in one, from gentle swings of the club to a little helping hand or foot to secure success!
Bumper boats caused a splash and an excuse to bump in to a friend.
‘Land ahoy’ as Reception climbed aboard the big ship which was standing room only!
Lunch in our very own covered picnic area was a real treat and lots of birds followed us.
Spider towers, tractor rides and a great wooden adventure area left the children just wanting more.
We ended the afternoon with ice-lollies and we thanked the staff at the farm for their kind attention. They told us it had been a pleasure to have Alton Convent School visit for the day as all the children were very polite and well behaved. What a great day!

As part of this term’s science programme on teeth and eating, Year 3 had a great day at Marwell Zoo on Monday. They learnt lots about how carnivore, omnivore and herbivore teeth are fitted to their function in a really interesting workshop session, before touring the zoo and meeting lots of animals. Particular favourites included the penguins and meerkats.

The whole of Year 3 went to Sainsburys Supermarket in Alton. We went there because in science we are learning about healthy eating. When we got there, Debby and Anne took us up the meeting room. We had to go through the warehouse to get up there! In the meeting room we tried six different fruits; they were mango, melon, strawberry, grape, pineapple and kiwi. My favourite was the red grape. The we went to see John at the meet counter and looked at the meat. After that we went to look at the fish. I held the fish: I stuck my finger in its mouth - its tongue felt like sandpaper! The we did a quiz and got to take a banana.

The first years have been studying physical and chemical changes. Today we did an experiment to show a useful chemical change and we made a nail turn pink by coating it in copper. We did this by firstly putting three spatula measures of powdered rock (copper carbonate) in the test tube, then carefully used a pipette to add acid a few drops at a time until the tube is half full. Next we dropped an iron nail into the solution and left it for about five minutes. Following that we very carefully poured the solution away and used tweezers to put the (hopefully pink) nail onto a paper towel. Mrs Duffy made a competition to see whose nail was the most pink. Fortunately my team won! Over all I have learned a lot about physical and chemical changes.

During Physics we have been learning about springs, and we used our knowledge to work out how much money was carried in a pouch made by Mrs Jakabowski.

Firstly we had to make a big hole in a plastic bag so we could hang it on a spring. We hooked the spring on to the clamp stand, and tied a note with the plastic bag on to the spring. Then we measured the spring with nothing on it. Afterwards we put 1p or 2p in the bag to make 50p. Each time we put in some money, we measured the length of the extension. Then we plotted a graph and weighed the pouch. On the graph we went up to the point where the extension was, and then to the line on the graph. Our group thought that there was 29p in the pouch.