Class four Wormery

Class four have been busy today making wormeries.  They worked in pairs to fill a jar with sand and compost. They had to alternate each layer and make sure it was packed together to allow the worms to move.

We then added some leaves for the worms to eat.  Then we searched for some worms to put in our wormeries.  Unfortunately there are no photos of this stage as our hands were all too muddy!! 

Once back inside the classroom we covered the top of the jars making sure they had air holes. 

We then covered the outside of each jar with black paper and placed the jar inside a cupboard.  We have predicted what we think will happen and will now observe them to see what actually does happen. 

Minibeast walk

Class four set out on a minibeast walk on Monday afternoon.  We were very lucky as it was such a beautiful afternoon. We only got caught in a peedie shower. 

We had some very important visitors with us too. Our visitors from Kenya joined us on our walk to find out about our local community.

It was quite muddy in places...but it was perfect for rubber boots to go through! 

We found lots of different minibeasts on our walk. We spotted some green beetles which we had yet to find!  All this bug catching was hard work so we stopped for a peedie rest!

Then it was time to set off again! 

When we reached Mr Forsyth's house we were met by a giant puddle!! Which we just HAD to walk through!!

We settled down for a rest and to enjoy our picnic lunch. 

Then we had a look at Mr Forsyth's moth trap to see what it had collected. We found one beautiful moth and one not so beautiful, huge spider!

On our way back to school we enjoyed learning about all the different plants and flowers we came across.  Some smelt like garlic and coconuts. 

We all really enjoyed our walk, but were very tired by the end of it!,

Buzzing Bee research!

Class four have been busy researching bees this week.  We have looked at the physical features of a bee and found out why they are so important to humans.  We watched a film clip which showed us around a honeybee producers home, in the highlands of Scotland.  He told us all about how important bees are to humans.  

We have now started making information posters to show the information we have found out.

Our butterflies have hatched!!

Class four were very excited to come in on Monday morning to two beautiful butterflies.  We observed the butterflies for a while and had a lot of good discussions about their wings and bodies.  Then we carried on with our other work...

When we checked back a peedie while later we realised we had two more butterflies!! We were a bit upset that we had missed them hatching so we decided to record the net whilst we went out for break incase we missed the last one hatching.  When we returned from break we had a quick check...but still no butterfly!!  Later we checked again, just in time as the butterfly had just started to nibble a hole and poke his way out of the chrysalis.  We all gathered around the net to watch the final butterfly hatching out of the chrysalis.  It was very interesting to watch as its wings were squashed up and his legs were all crumpled.  

We observed it closely over the rest of the morning and were relieved to see that the butterfly very quickly started to stretch its wings and legs.  

In the afternoon we took the butterflies up to our secret minibeast garden and had great fun releasing them into their natural habitat.  

We were very careful not to touch their wings when we took the butterflies out of the net. 

We were all really impressed at how symmetrical their wings were!

We placed some of the butterflies on flowers and leaves.   Then we placed one on top of our minibeast hotel.

Food Chains

Class four have also been learning about food chains this week.  We researched and learnt about the different parts of a food chain and why they are important.

Then we constructed our own chains to show the 5 sections of a food chain; energy, producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer and decomposer. 

Minibeast hotel

Class four have been busy hanging up their minibeast codes around the school this week.  See if you can spot them when you are out and about!

Some of us spent time picking up litter which was in our school grounds.  We made sure that we collected anything we saw that could hurt or endanger animals and minibeasts. 

We couldn't resist finding a few creatures!!

We carefully gathered pallets, old carpet, pieces of wood, sticks, old plants and leaves to make our minibeast hotel.  Once we had constructed our hotel with lots of layers we found a few minibeasts in the area to 'move in!'  We are going to keep an eye on our minibeast hotel for the next few weeks to see what minibeasts it will attract.  

Class Four's Caterpillars

Class four have been closely monitoring the progress of their caterpillars.  We have observed them growing from tiny caterpillars to much bigger caterpillars.  We are really excited as they have now begun the process of changing into a butterfly.  

We have transferred the five chrysalis into the butterfly net and are now patiently waiting for the butterflies to appear.