Wow! Today Toucans had a really lovely day at Twycross Zoo. Everyone was perfectly behaved which meant we really got to make the most of our day.

This morning we saw the meerkats, leaopards, penguins, flamingos and all different sorts of birds.

Then we went to the discovery centre where we had a lesson all about how animals adapt to their habitats. The teacher was very impressed with how much we already knew! We met a bearded dragon called Alice and a hissing cockroach called Alan. We were super brave because most of us touched them.

After that we had lunch – finally! We then went to the park and had a whale of a time playing together.

This afternoon we saw many different types of monkeys, giraffes, rhinos, lemurs and many more animals on the way to them!

On the coach on the way back some of us even needed a little snooze!

Your teachers are very proud of the listening, behaviour and manners you showed today Toucans. Well done!

Today we talked about what plants need to be able to grow. We decided seeds, water, light and soil would all help a plant to grow well. We then planted some sunflower seeds which should started growing over the next few weeks if we are correct.

In our science less over the next few weeks we are learning all about plants. Today we explored which plants, flowers and trees we have in and around our school.

In Science today we learnt about how to change the shape of objects made from different materials. We started our lesson by collecting three things we thought we could change the shape of and three things we couldn’t. We had a discussion about the properties of these materials. We then investigated which materials we could change by stretching, bending, squashing and twisting. We had great fun finding out!

In our Science lesson today we learnt more about the properties of materials. We explored some different materials for ourselves to find out what properties they had. We focused on naming different materials but also describing them using scientific vocabulary. We focused on transparent, opaque, waterproof and flexible.

This week in our science lessons we have been experimenting and investigating. Today we planned and carried out an experiment to find out what makes ice melt more quickly. We shared our ideas and in groups put ice cubes in 3 different places in the classroom.

We then observed them every 10 minutes to see how they had changed.

Look at our photos to see what we found out!

Today in our Science lesson we carried out an experiment which we planned yesterday. Yesterday we received a letter from Professor Pole who had received our letters and was very impressed. Here is the letter he sent us:

So in Science we planned and carried out an experiment to find the best material. We talked about what an umbrella needed to be and decided on these three things: flexible, waterproof and hard-wearing. We discussed materials that would be unsuitable and why:

Jessica – Glass would be no good. It is waterproof but you wouldn’t be able to put it up and down and it might shatter.
Amaya – Wood isn’t waterproof – it would rot.
Seth – Plastic might be good because it is waterproof. My raincoat is made of plastic.
Charlie – I think fabric might work because that’s what my umbrella is made from.
Frankie – Metal wouldn’t bend and also it goes rusty.

These were all good predictions! We did the experiment together. Have a look at our photographs for the results.

Today in Science we started to learn about how to sort and classify animals. We learnt that animals can be grouped together in categories with other animals which have the same features as them.

We sorted animals into birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals and insects. We worked hard learning about the features of each of these groups.

We started our new year with a very exciting discovery because outside our classroom this morning there was a tent! We had no idea why or what it was doing there so we decided the only way to find out was to explore it for ourselves. We went outside and inside the tent Havana found a letter, Jessica found a backpack and a Millie found a bag.

Everyone was very excited to read the letter. It said:

We were then super-excited to try and find out who PP was and what film he was talking about. It was very chilly outside (Esmay told us it was minus two degrees!) so we took our findings inside to explore them further. We looked through the bag together and the more things we found the more we were convinced PP was definitely an explorer of some sort. He had some warm gloves, a hat, a woolly scarf, a compass, a clock, a torch, some snacks and lots of other things that suggested he explored in cold places. We then found a memory stick which had the film he spoke about in his letter. We watched it and discovered that PP was actually Professor Pole who is a nature explorer. He said it was minus 28 degrees in the North Pole today – BRR!

He told us he explores all over the North Pole and is particularly interested in polar bears. He asked for our help with 3 things which we are interested to find out more about:

1: What animals live in the North Pole?
2. What are the landscape and climate like?
3. How do people survive in the North Pole?

He has left his things with us while he explores further and left us a lovely bag of fiction and non-fiction books too. We have put them in our role-play area so we can practice being explorers too! We will keep you informed about how we get on with our research.

Welcome back and Happy New Year.