On Monday, Mrs Murphy's Year 4 class enjoyed a visit from Karen from the RSPB.
We have been learning about birds as part of our literacy activities including the different types of birds like garden birds, water birds and birds of prey. It was a great opportunity for us to learn more from an expert from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
We spent some time in the Assembly Hall watching a PowerPoint presentation with Karen about the different birds we might see around school, like the Blue Tit, Robin and Blackbird. Then we took our Binoculars outside for some bird watching of our own. We saw 23 Starlings! We also saw a Great Tit and blackbirds and crows. The crows especially seem to be enjoying the bird food we left out!
Finally we had a great time playing the Migration Game and learning about Swallows who migrate to Africa.
On Tuesday, we played a game trying to guess which bird some feathers belonged too. We guessed the Swan feather correctly and learned about their webbed feet and the preening they do. We guessed the Peacock feather correctly too and learned how the male feathers have 'eyes' on them to scare off predators and how the male likes to show off so he can get a girlfriend. We got a bit stuck on the Buzzard feather but we learned how the Buzzard has talons and a sharp beak for eating small mammals like mice. Finally we needed a bit of help to guess the Pheasant feather and we learner how it is a quite a big game bird that eats grain and the male has bright, showy feathers too.
We also had a chance to study a Starlings nest although we know that normally we shouldn't touch birds nests, this one had fallen out of a Climber plant and couldn't be used again. It was very intricately made of mud, straw, grass, moss and leaves. It was a bit smelly and we wouldnt like to try to make it using just our mouths
