The children in Ospreys and Merlins were absolutely delighted with the visit by Kevin Read from the Yorkshire Planetarium, who brought his Stardome in to educate the children further about Earth and Space.  It was a truly ‘out of this world’ experience, but don’t just take my word for it, here is what the children from Ospreys have written (very eagerly) about the experience!

‘Merlins and Ospreys have been learning about the solar system, and on 8th of February the stardome came into school for our two classes to go inside and enjoy. Faith thought it was interesting and we all learned about space and she would like to become an astronomer  and study space, Holly thought it was AMAZING! Now she wants to be a scientist and an astrophysicist.  We would to see it again and learn even more about our galaxy, our solar system and our sun.

The planet Pluto was actually pink and blue. There is a suitable galaxy/planet that we could live on but unfortunately it would take you 100,000 years to get there, but we have no idea what this planet is called. In 15 years NASA is thinking of sending 10 people to Mars and if they survive, NASA will be sending thousands or more people but unfortunately  it would take 3 years to get there.’ FB and HW

‘Merlins and Ospreys have had a wonderful morning in an outstanding stardome, learning facts about space, galaxies, planets and stars. The children enjoyed every bit of it, saying it was amazing and it was great as it felt like they were actually moving in Space.
Charlie said he felt dizzy when the screen was moving. The class loved the video as it was amazing seeing all the planets orbit the sun and learning new facts.
They saw lots of planets like Venus, Saturn and Mercury and found out about lots of new galaxies.’  CA and OC

‘Ospreys and Merlins are learning about space and Kevin came with a Stardome and all of us enjoyed  it. A Stardome is a big inflatable balloon that has projections of the solar system and constellations in it, so it’s 3D.  When we were in the Stardome it felt like we were travelling through space, it was so cool. Kevin knows everything about space, it was amazing.’   EM and FH

‘Inside the Stardome it looked like we were in space.  Ospreys have lots of questions for Kevin and have emailed him with them. Kevin knows everything about space, he is a space wizard. This is a fact that Kevin told all the Ospreys,  ‘if you look straight at the sun from a telescope or directly at it for 3 seconds,  you will be blind,  so I would not look at the sun directly.’OB and FH

‘We learnt that there are lots of galaxies. Did you know the sun is white, but it’s a yellow dwarf star?’ RC and DS

Merlins and Ospreys bring the Amazon Rainforest to our school!

To celebrate the end of Our Green Planet topic, children from Merlins and Ospreys have given the Millennium garden a huge makeover and so much more!   The children had a vision of what they wanted to achieve; which was to bring the Amazon Rainforest into our school.  Children had expressed a wish to be able to read outside at break times and lunchtimes, but the only area available was our disused, run-down Millennium garden.

The children started the project, having studied the Amazon Rainforest, by designing their ideal garden. Next, they needed to make their vision come true and so needed to acquire funding and offers of help and equipment from our PTA, parents and local companies.  A great time was spent in purchasing the resources for our project.

The final and the busiest stage of our Enterprise project was making the vision come true.  All this week, parents, grandparents, aunties, cousins and carers were busy working with the children in the garden.

The children want to say a huge thank you to everyone involved in making this happen. We can’t wait to take our books in to read!

Please look at our photos as they certainly tell a story of their own!