Today is Earth Day which has been celebrated every April 22nd since 1970. The aim of Earth Day is to raise awareness of the damage done to the environment.

You might like to try Google’s doodle for the day – a relaxing game where you control a bee visiting flowers and which will teach you lots of things about how important bees are: google.co.uk

Why not find out about some of the wildlife around where you live by learning the names of the birds that you can see from your own home? There is more information on what to do in the video below or read the text at the bottom…

If the video does not play in your browser, click here.

Objective: To be able to recognise and name at least six different British birds.

Quick bird spotting guides:  Sheet 1   Sheet 2

How: Spend half an hour a day for a week quietly recording the birds you can see from a window. Putting out some food can help if you have any but avoid bread at this time of year as it is not good for chicks.

Can you find out which is the most common bird to visit your garden?

Challenge: Can you think of an investigation to carry out as you bird watch? Perhaps you think different birds will come at different times of the day – how could you find out? Or maybe you could investigate the birds’ favourite food? (Try sorting out some mixed bird seed). 

Dear Parents and Carers,

Over the last few days, we have come across lots of online resources that are available to support children’s learning at home during the unprecedented times. This list is by no means exhaustive, nor are we promoting anything in particular, but we thought we’d share some of them with you. All children have different learning styles and interests – maybe something below will click! We will also update our learning packs on the class pages as time goes on.

With very best wishes from the staff of Lickey Hills PSN.

https://www.themathsfactor.com/ THIS IS GREAT!! Carol Vordermann is offering free access to her great website for maths offering games, challenges and daily lessons to support learning. There are motivational medals to earn too… Also lots of fun times tables games at https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables . Finally – great online, live lessons and follow up activities from Gareth Metcalf at http://www.iseemaths.com/home-lessons/

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/ – Fantastic resources and games for reading, writing, spelling and maths.

Some lovely reading opportunities to share at https://www.storylineonline.net/

https://www.literacyshed.com/home.html Go to The Literacy Shed for some great ideas for story writing. The Literacy Trust have developed a fantastic portal of resources for families – go to https://literacytrust.org.uk/family-zone/ . Also there’s a list of virtual author activities at https://www.weareteachers.com/virtual-author-activities/

Joe Wicks – The Body Coach is running a daily workout, Monday – Friday at 9am. https://www.thebodycoach.com/blog/pe-with-joe-1254.html?fbclid=IwAR13SHNgsUZEGLVRZYjbFzTf8PDAJvD4I8BxOASuWkVmjSNI6fsKHP1vs40

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zhyb4wx (KS1) and https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/subjects/zxsvr82 (KS2) to practise your Spanish skills

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/mar/23/10-of-the-worlds-best-virtual-museum-and-art-gallery-tours The Guardian published 10 of the World’s best virtual museum and art gallery tours – but this list is not exhaustive!! The Tate Modern, for example, will give you some ideas for really crazy art to try!!

https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/ Learn about all the animals around the world!

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/ for geography and science ideas and fascinating facts. https://bpes.bp.com/the-emperors-new-clothes Some great science activities on BP’s website for Primary children – including this fun activity to help the Emperor find the right clothes for each season!

More science fun at https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/collections/primary-games/1

What a mess! Coloured sand and pebbles, small bits of plastic and paperclips, not to mention some salt, had some how got all mixed together in the art cupboard. Could 5AB use their science knowledge and skills to solve this separation problem? Of course they could! Using magnets, sieves, filters, water and a bit of evaporation, all five materials were soon separated much to the relief of our school budget.

The lesson began as we carefully watched some drops of hot water cool and evaporate… slowly, crystals of salt appeared. It hadn’t just been water after all!

Year 5 have been learning about dissolving materials but not all materials dissolve. We made predictions about seven common materials and set about testing to see whether they dissolved in water, only mixed with it or perhaps did a bit of both. Some of the materials came as a surprise – our hot chocolate very slowly settled to the bottom of the water!

Year 5 have been learning how to increase a force by exploring a series of activities with levers, pulleys and gears. We found out that although the force could be increase we needed a larger movement (pulling or turning) to achieve it. We related our learning to real life situations such as wheelbarrows, our arms, car gears and cranes.

As part of their forces science topic, Year 5 have been exploring density, expansion and why hot air rises. To test our ideas we worked together to build hot air balloons. 

Year 5 have been investigating water resistance by timing how long it took different shapes to fall through water. We found that having a smaller area helped the shaped cut through the liquid but we were quite surprised to learn that the rear of the shape was important too.

Bringing their space topic to a close and kicking off next term’s forces topic, 5AB designed, built and tested interplanetary landers. Our mission… to boldly design a system that would safely protect an egg dropped from near the ceiling! Starting with exactly the same set of materials in each group, we created parachutes, crumple zones and shock absorbing designs. In the end, all the different engineering designs were successful (although we sadly lost one egg on the launch pad.)