Nature at Chater Infant School

  The ducklings have been visited by all the different classes in the school this week.   All the children (and staff) were very excited to see them.  The children asked some very interesting questions and learnt more about the ducklings.   Sadly today it was time for the ducklings to return to their farm in Norfolk.  The farmer has collected them and they are now on their way home.  They will be living on a free range farm in Norfolk and as soon as they are old enough will get to live outside. We hope you enjoyed following along with our duck adventures over the past few weeks.   Look out for photos of the Nursery children holding ducklings next week on the Nursery Class Blog page. Look at these funny pictures of the ducklings having a stretch!  

The ducklings have enjoyed swimming over the past few days.   They knew how to swim as soon as they were put into the water.  We have looked closely at the ducklings webbed feet as they help them to swim.   The ducklings do not have any natural oils on their feathers yet so the teachers had to dry them carefully with a towel when they had finished swimming!! Enjoy these videos and pictures of the ducklings first swim!

We are having great fun looking after the five lovely ducklings in Nursery!   The ducklings have learnt to eat and drink this week.  They needed a little help first, adults wriggled their fingers in the food to get the ducklings excited so they started pecking.  Once one duckling had learnt to drink from the water container, the others then quickly copied! At the weekend the ducklings had a sleepover at Mrs Spinage's house!  They have started to be very interested in water, splashing it out of the drink container and into the sawdust, making a wet mess to play in.  The ducklings are also getting louder and make a lot of noise when they wake up from a nap! Enjoy some of these pictures.... Can you see how much they have grown already?

Day Three Thursday Last night two more eggs hatched and by Thursday morning we had four ducklings.  The last egg was slower to hatch but, by lunchtime, it had finally hatched so now we had five ducklings in Nursery.  Enjoy this video to show an egg hatching.  We used time-lapse so the video is faster than in real-life! (Sorry the clip is upside down!) Here is a video from a previous year in Nursery.  Isn't it amazing! Children have enjoyed touching the ducklings very gently and holding them on their laps!   Children have started to show great curiosity and are asking lots of questions.  We will observe the eggs closely to try to find out some answers to questions like:  I wonder how ducks eat? I wonder if ducklings can fly or swim? I wonder what a duckling likes to eat? Do ducklings sleep alot?

  Day Two We have some very egg-citing news!   Yesterday afternoon the Nursery Class had a very special delivery from a farm in Norfolk.  We had 5 eggs delivered.  We were keeping them warm in an incubator.   Yesterday 2 eggs hatched overnight and now we know these were duck eggs as we have ducklings!  The Nursery children were really excited to meet them this morning!

Egg-citing News  We have some very egg-citing news to share with you. The Nursery Class will have a very special delivery today from a farm in Norfolk.  We will have some real eggs delivered to Nursery.  We will keep them warm in an incubator and wait to see if they will hatch.   Facts about eggs: Did you know lots of animals lay eggs?   Can you name some?  Here are some pictures of animals which lay or hatch out from eggs.     Which animal do you think will hatc h from the Nursery eggs? Challenge:  If you would like to draw an animal which lays eggs or hatches out from an egg, give the pictures to your class teacher to pass to Mrs Spinage and some of them can be added to the blog!  

  Tadpole adventures at Chater We arrived back to school this term to a nice surprise! Early Years classrooms now have a tank of tiny tadpoles. Mrs Spinage has collected some frogspawn.  It was laid in a pond by a female frog.  Each egg was a black spot inside a ball of jelly. Here is a picture of the frogspawn when it started to come out of the jelly eggs.  Can you see how the 'black spot' changed shape?  This was the tadpole beginning to grow. After a day the tadpoles came out of the eggs and rested at the bottom of the tank.   The next day they started swimming around.    You could see some feathery gills at the head end.  This was how the tadpole could breathe under the water.  The teachers have been feeding them some cucumber.  The tadpoles seem to like it! Maybe you can find out more about tadpoles and how they will eventually turn into frogs.  Check back on this blog to see how they grow and change. In the mean...

 Egg Hatching Here is the time-lapse video we made when we managed to catch an egg hatching on camera last year.  Isn't it amazing!!

  Everyone has been thinking about the environment and taking part in activities to remind others about looking after the planet. Here are some examples of the work we have done at Chater Infants. I was really impressed with these models and posters-Well Done!!

 We have put food out for birds  in case they are hungry in the cold Winter months.

  We have been learning about birds and feeding the birds. We took part in the RSPB schools bird watch.

       Happy New Year everyone ! I can see lots of birds out of my window and they are busy looking for food. In the cold Winter months it is a good idea to feed the birds and also give them a bowl of water if the ground is frozen.  The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds ( RSPB ) are running a Garden Bird Watch event from the 28th to the 30th of January. They are asking us to keep a record and report back to them how many birds and different species that we see over those 2 days. Even if you have not got a garden then you can watch out for birds from a window or balcony. Take a look at their website - rspb.org.uk where you will find details of this activity and be able to order a bird identification poster.  The Woodland Trust also have a good website where you can find out about nature. https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/blog/2018/12/top-15-winter-birds/

      This is a copy of our schools action plan, which we will update throughout the year. We are going to set up a gardening club. Look after plants in the classrooms. Learn about the 5 R's- Recycle, Repair, Reuse, Refuse, Reduce. We are going to introduce energy monitors to our classrooms and remind everyone that we must not waste electricity. 

  Chater Infant school are starting to work towards an ECO Schools Green Flag Award.  We already have an ECO School Bronze Award which we achieved in 2019. We have an Eco committee of 6 children from across the school and Miss Taperell and Mrs Clark are helping these children inform the whole school about what we can do in our school and at home to look after the environment. We have talked about what we are already doing and what we understand and we have made an action plan that will help us do some work in some different areas.  https://www.eco-schools.org.uk/about/eco-schools-green-flag-other-awards/  

The cocoons have finally opened and we had 4 butterflies in Nursery!  We were excited to see them drinking the sugar water we put in for them.  They also enjoyed sitting on the fruit pieces we put in to give them lots of energy.   We released the butterflies outside which was very exciting for everyone.  Some butterflies flew straight out of the netting but two needed a little coaxing!   The butterflies we had were called Painted Ladies.   Image from Pixabay Image from Pixabay Can you find out the names and patterns of any other types of butterflies?