Category Archives: Science
Birds Spotted today (Friday Jan 22nd)
Hi everyone, has anyone seen any birds out on this lovely sunny Friday? Miss Lawson spotted some Mallard Ducks and a Coot at the pond at Queen’s Park today. Here they are:
And in the woods by Greenbank Gardens Mrs Macleod noticed something very unusual – five green parrots in the trees!! Can you believe it?
They are a small kind of parrot, known as parakeets. Normally they live in the jungle and hot countries like Africa and Asia, but they might be pets that have escaped here and are now living happily in the wild. I hope they don’t mind the cold Scottish winter…
Here are the Greenbank Parakeets on video:
Have a Good Weekend and Happy Bird Watching!
A Bird a Day: Thrush 🎵
In the run up to the RSPB Big Garden Bird Watch, we will give you a titbit about a different bird each day to help you spot them and learn a little more about them.
Today’s bird is the Thrush:
Thrush has a brown body and a smart white tummy with brown spots.
Thrush is about 20cm long. If you have a ruler you could look for the number 20 on it to find the Thrush’s size.
Thrush has a lovely song and likes to sing from the very tops of the trees! 🎵🎶
Thrushes are quite shy but you can often see them hopping about in grassy areas as they like to pull up worms there. Snails are another favourite food.
In Winter it can hard for Thrushes to find any worms if the ground is hard and frozen, so you will sometimes see them in the trees eating up all the red berries…
Here is a little rhyme for you about Thrush:
Mrs Thrush is in a rush,
To find some food for tea,
Because she knows that when it snows,
The ground is going to freeze,
There won’t be any worms to pull,
And so to keep her belly full,
She gobbles up the berries
On the bushes and the trees.
You could ask an adult or a big brother/sister to read this rhyme to you, then try saying it back to them, a line at a time.
Can you think of another word that rhymes with “Thrush”? Maybe you could make up your own rhyme or a story about Mrs Thrush.
Or you could try drawing her lovely speckled tummy.
And let us know if you see one!
The Big Garden Bird Watch 🐦
Hi everyone! At the end of January there is a special event taking place. You can watch this video for a little introduction:
I wonder if you have seen any birds from your window or when out on a walk recently. In Winter it can be easier to spot them because there are less leaves on the trees to hide them, and they are often out searching for food in the cold. If you are able to feed them then that is even better. Perhaps like me you noticed some bird footprints in the snow recently:
Every January, the RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) holds a Big Garden Bird Watch. It has been doing this for 42 years.
It asks us to watch the birds outside our window for one hour and record the number of different birds we see on a chart like this:
The results are counted and they help to work out which birds in our country are doing well and which ones might need a bit of help.
If you would like to take part, you can find out more at this link:
https://www.rspb.org.uk/get-involved/activities/birdwatch/
It’s a great way of practising your counting skills, as well as learning about Science & Nature!
Even if you don’t do the Bird Watch, you can still have loads of fun watching birds and working out what they all are. This video I took in Pollok Park this week shows how close you can sometimes get to them…
In the run up to the Big Garden Bird Watch we will be posting some fun facts about different birds and how you can spot them, as well as activities linked to our feathered friends.
Keep your eye on the blog and Google Classrooms!
⭐️ Shining Stars ⭐️
In Arran the children have been getting into the Christmas spirit – role-playing and hammering in the elves’ workshop, potting their hyacinths in silver pots, creating seasonal artwork, using clay to design decorations of their choice, counting penguins, making cards, calendars, lanterns and much more…
What a busy bunch!
Outdoors we have been exploring the properties of ice and enjoying frosty walks to Busby church gardens.
Role Play: “It’s a polar landscape.”
Literacy: In the Story Box, The Gruffalo’s Child has been very popular, with the children keen to act out the story and make up their own versions using the props for character and setting.
Stick Man has been another seasonal favourite story to explore.
We also read Little Owl and the Christmas Star and looked at different types of stars, before the children designed their own.
Rolling, moulding, cutting, imprinting: the Red, Yellow & Pink groups experimented with clay and water to create stars, snowmen and other decorations, using beads and various implements to make patterns, then metallic paints with varnish to finish them off.
“I’m going to make mine so pretty!”
The children were very proud of their different shining stars. We hope you enjoy hanging them on your tree or around the house!
Science: Planting & Growing: We have been watching the hyacinth bulbs that we planted start to grow. The children repotted them in silver pots for you and hope you enjoy the flowers later at home.
Science: Watch us mixing up fake snow using baking soda and hair conditioner…
Science: Ice Experiments: nature has kindly provided us with lots of thick ice shapes to investigate and experiment with.
Outdoors the children had great fun rolling down hills and investigating bugs found under logs
“I want to hold the wood louse… we have to be gentle. I’m going to put him back.” “Look, black beetles!” “A centipede!”
We have been gradually adding to our Kindness/ Christmas Tree with snowflake decorations, sunshine sticks and kind deeds.
“Share my lego with friends.” “I helped with lunch.”
Making lanterns to light up Busby
Numeracy: Christmas counting games
The children have also been offering ideas for a new nursery logo and then voting for their favourites to create a simple pictogram.
We’ve seen some fabulous Christmas outfits!
We wish a Merry Christmas to all our star children and their families!
We hope you have a very happy time together during the break.
******Making a Rainbow🌈 ******
What do we need to make a rainbow?
Let’s investigate!
“Sun, rain, and maybe with a torch?”
Did you know that you can split the light using a CD?
We tried this using a CD and a torch .
“I see all the colour, it’s a success!!”
“I love science experiments”
We discovered that bright white light is made up of different colours of light all mixed together.
We tried to think of things with all the colours of the rainbow for our experiment……We could use:
“the wee sweet bright things you can eat?”
“Oh look the colours all mixing up”
“That’s going brown”
“It’s really making a rainbow”
This experiment didn’t quite work out! We thought using water and sun we would somehow create a rainbow? Maybe try a holding up a glass of water in a sunny place until you see a rainbow on the floor next time? However we did discover you need light to see your reflection! We also noticed our shadows on the ground when it was really sunny, then when it clouded over they disappeared. Sometimes scientists repeat experiments and get different results depending on lots of factors like the environment or method. (During our experiment a fly flew into the water………..which may spark another type of investigation!)
Try these experiments at home to see if you get the same results! Next generation of scientists!
Potions and Pumpkins 🎃 with the Purple Group
We read ‘Meg and Mog’ and ‘I think my Mum is a Witch’, inspiring us to use our imaginations and create our own spooky stories.
Working collaboratively with our peers we successfully made Pumpkin Soup. We carefully deseeded the pumpkin, using our fine motor skills to chop the pumpkin and other vegetables.
We developed our problem solving skills as we measured and weighed the ingredients.
The children then had the opportunity to taste their creation. ‘This soup is amazing’- R
We created our own potions using play dough and a variety of other resources, we retold the spells from the book developing our language skills.
We developed our fine motor, sensory and number recognition skills as we matched and counted spiders 🕷 and snakes 🐍 using tweezers in a variety of different experiences.
Some Spooky Goings on…
In Katrine Room (Yellows and Pinks), the children’s talk and excitement about Hallowe’en has inspired lots of learning – they’ve been building (with bones), designing, learning about spiders and bats, enjoying songs, dancing, story-telling and science experiments.
We’ve been talking about our bones and where they are in our bodies, as well as reading Funny Bones and practising the Skeleton Dance. If you want to try the dance at home, here is the link: https://youtu.be/Pbl4BNkAq_U
Experiments and imaginative role play have been going on at the water table and all around the room: “We’re filling the spider bowl up to make a bath for the snake…” “We’re making a triple berry pie…” “It’s a disgusting pie!”
Spider & Bat Studies
The children have shown a keen interest in bats and spiders from wildlife magazines. So we’ve been studying them with books and videos and later made some models of them. Good fine motor and threading skills were on display as the children poked pipe cleaners and string through holes to construct spiders.
“That’s a tarantula.” “I’m going to the make the one with orange legs.”
We also tried different ways to make giant webs…
Fine motor skills were further tested whilst picking spiders out of webs using tweezers and other tools.
With great concentration, children selected shapes to make bats, tried their hand at pumpkin printing, and created individual lantern designs – the best bit was when we put out the lights and lit them up!
In Science experiments they studied the life cycle of a pumpkin, dissected them, and then planted pumpkin seeds. We look forward to watching them grow…
The Latest Action with the Reds! 💥☄️
The Red Group have been having plenty of Outdoor Action recently, experimenting with herbs in their Mud Kitchen, and practicing their throwing, catching, balancing and other physical skills.
Using a rope and recycled bottles of water, the Reds investigated forces, weights and volume. They tested their problem-solving skills as they used a pulley to hoist up the water.
“This is the Machine Maker.”
Watch the children creating a conveyer belt process with the tubes and bark pieces, using teamwork and imagination.
Indoors the children have been exploring Numeracy using autumnal natural objects, and in Literacy they have been really enjoying the story of The Disgusting Sandwich, using Hanen techniques and exploring the meaning of descriptive words.
Technology
We have been exploring technology using the Beebots, sending them in different directions.
We have also used the App pictured below on our iPads to work out how to say words and phrases in different languages.
Fishy Things going on… 🐠
Nature is fascinating!
In Arran Building, the Pink and Yellow group children have been showing great curiosity about sea creatures, so we’ve been learning more about Ocean Worlds in various ways :
“Can we read this big book about shells?”
“What is this fish called?”
We’ve been reading fishy stories & books of facts to discover about different types of fish, like lion fish & deep sea angler.
We made our own Sea World, then designed fish and fishing rods using magnets and paper clips. Watch us trying to catch them!
“We need to make some seaweed for it.”
“That’s a whale shark. It’s the biggest fish.”
“Look, I’ve caught two anchovies.”
”I caught a number 3.”
The children explored with their senses as they felt the scales of a real mackerel and described what they observed:
“It’s cold and slippery…”
“…green and blue, shiny, feels soft…”
”Tail helps it swim. That’s the bit that the eggs come out… that’s the fin.”
Rock Pool role play and nature investigations with bladderwrack seaweeds and shells. “It feels slimy” (seaweed)
“I’m being a whale shark… This is a baby stingray.”
“I can hear something in the shell….I found a limpet!”
Expressive Arts:
The children have also been expanding their creative skills by trying out different art techniques including collage, printing, and paper marbling with inks and oil. They used mashers to print turtles and clay to model starfish and other creatures.
We practiced numeracy skills through some fishy games.
“I counted 8 shrimps!”
Sink or Float: In Science experiments, we made jellyfish with balloons and string. When filled with air alone they floated too high. One of the children suggested it would sink more if we added water inside, so we did… We also tried adding a little oil and sand.
“I saw jellyfish floating in the water on my holiday.“
”They’re soft, yellow and red” “They have tentacles“ ”This one’s a baby”
“Look what it’s doing. It’s making a current….a whirlpool.”
