Day: June 16, 2015

Book WizARDs Blog

We are a community book club that meet every Monday at half past 2 to discuss the book we are reading. We also pick tasks for every week to give us a bigger understanding of the book we are reading. Our evaluation sheet has helped us to improvIMG_2964e and enhance our book club and has shown us how we are doing, to keep our book club fun and on task we have Book WizARDs rules. Being the leader is one of the jobs that the  p5-7s take turn in. The illustrations wall is a wall that we have, to put our own illustrations on, as that is one of our tasks. We recently made a big decision to change the book we were  reading as some of us were not enjoying the book (Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colin).  As it is near the end of term our teacher Mrs Gibson gave us some evaluation booklets that asked us some questions about the club and how its been for our members view, here are some things people said.

“I have started reading more at home” ,  “The roles were really interesting and helped me understand how pupils discuss/engage/enjoy reading”,   “I’m so more confident in reading”,   “I have read every night now that Book WizARDs is on”

Members – Donna Murray – Trail, Sharon Martin, Rachel Burnett, Skye Murray – Trail, Jessica Corrigan, Merryn Hall and Hazel Martin.

Books we have read (reading)

Precious and the Mystery of the Missing Lion by Alexander McCall Smith (Scottish Book Trust book)
Check out the Book Trailer we made for this book here


Pyrates Boy by E.B Colin (Scottish Book Trust book)

Mondays are Murder (reading)

These are all very good books and would recommend all of them. Genres; Precious and the Mystery of the Missing lion – mystery/ animal, Pyrates Boy – adventure/mystery Mondays are Murder – mystery/crime drama.

Everybody is really enjoying Book WizARDs and I cant wait to start reading the next book.

By Skye Murray – Trail P7

 

Chick Chart

Today Hester’s dad Patrick came in to check on the chicks. He taught us how to do bar chart, we used this to measure the chicks IMG_2972growth. He told us IMG_2974that the x  axis is is across and the y axis is up. He also told us a joke that the x axis is a cross! We learnt how the graph works. we made are graph 1 to 4 up the way and 35 to 70 across the way. We weighed the chicks in grams.  Because we don’t have many small chicks we put that on one, we don’t have many  have many big chicks either so we put that under one we went all the way up to 4 and  when we finished drawing it out we realised that both sides were symmetrical! We then drew a bell shaped curve over the graph to make sure it was an normal distribution. Then we split it in half to find the average or the mean of the chart which was 52.5 . we are proving are null hypothesis wrong, currently the white chicks are growing faster than the black chicks. That means that are hypothesis has almost been proved.  We now just need to prove to p1-3 that are hypothesis is true.

Cute Chicks

The chicks have hatched.

They hatched last week in IMG_2971fact, and are now running around the warm, cosy brooder at high speed, not a care in the world. Fourteen of them survived and are in the brooder rushing about. Number 17 hatched first and is massive, running around, knocking over the other chicks. Most of them are black, that means they are black rock chicks, originating in Scotland, and four of them are white that means they are la bresse gauloise chicks, originating in France. The chicks are now growing feathers on their wings and tails and are now trying to fly around the brooder. Some of the chicks are standing up straight and are a little bit more aggressive. We think these are cockerels. We need to weigh them to check they are well and putting on weight. Remember to put gloves and lab coats on! Otherwise we could pass germs on to the chicks, causing them to get diseases. We have to gingerly place them on the scales making sure they don’t make a bid for freedom and fly round the school. Most of the chicks are around 50-55grams. There is a weak chick, number 14, that we need to keep an eye on. We needed to come up with a way of remembering who was on what job, so we made a rota! The jobs are feeding them, giving them fresh water, cleaning out the poo, data recorder, and weighing them. The P5-7s have been working with Patrick and he has been teaching us about the chicks. We have made a hypothesis that the white chicks will grow faster because they are bred for meat and the black ones are bred for eggs. But Patrick says that with a hypothesis you need a null hypothesis as well to disprove your hypothesis. A null hypothesis is basically you flip your hypothesis round so our null hypothesis is that there is no difference between the chicks, so we need to prove it wrong, and so far according to the chart our hypothesis is right!  The chicks are amazing creatures and I’m happy we got them in the classroom.

By Jessica Corrigan, P7

Cheeping Chicks

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The chicks hatched, they hatched last week. The chicks are so cute they have puffed up into fluff balls. There are four La Bresse Gauloise chicks and ten Black Rock chicks. The La Bresse Gauloise chicks are from France and they are white the Black Rock chicks are from Scotland and they are black with yellow and white spots. We have moved the chicks into a big brooder were its nice and warm. They are running about all around the brooder they are even trying to fly. Their feathers have come out and they are growing so much.  Number 17 is the biggest because it was the first to hatch. We think that he is a cockerel because he stands up really straight like cockerels do. We weigh the chicks every day, they get harder and hared to catch every day to weigh them. Some of the chicks try and get out of the weighing box. We have made a job rota for us to do for the chicks. The chicks need plenty of food and water and they need to be kept warm. The jobs we need to do daily are feed them, fill up the water, wash the tray under the brooder, record the data, weight the chicks and clear out the poo. The p5,6 and 7 hypothesis is that white chicks will grow faster than the black ones because the white chicks are bred for eating so they bigger. Our null hypothesis is that both colours will have the same growth rate. We have put ropes around the brooder and a sign saying do not cross unless you have permission so that no one  bangs into the brooder as it will scare the chicks and make them fall over. Today when I was weighing the chicks one of the chicks jumped up onto the top of the water bottle thing, and some of the chicks stand in the food. I love having the chicks in the class room. Their are my favourite thing in the class room.

by Merryn Hall,P6