Isaac Newton

We decided to learn about Isaac Newton last week, because he was a famous scientist who lived and worked in Trinity College, Cambridge. When we visited Trinity College we saw an apple tree in the garden outside his window, which was grown from part of the famous tree that legends say he was sitting under when he worked out the laws of gravity.

We learnt that he was quite a jealous person with lots of secrets. Some of them we can never unlock. We also learnt about some of the amazing things that he worked out, to do with gravity, the planets, light and colours, and a sun-clock that he made when he was a kid.

We made a game about what we learnt about him. I hope you enjoy looking at the photos.

Paddington at Large

I've been reading Paddington at Large. The book is written by Michael Bond. Paddington Bear comes from Peru in South America. Paddington is a bear that is always up to mischief. He also comes up with really good excuses.

Paddington is mischievous because once when Paddington found a cooking book he tried to make a recipe that seemed really easy but was really hard.

Paddington is very quick at coming up with excuses because in one chapter Paddington is on TV and keeps on answering questions wrong, but kept on saying what he did.

My favourite chapter is called 'Paddington Hits the Jackpot'. I like it because it's really funny and because it's got lots of excuses. (It's the same one as my demonstration.)

My favourite character is Mr Gruber. Mr Gruber is Paddington's best friend. I like him because he is very kind.

The main characters are Mr Gruber, Jonathan and Judy, Mr and Mrs Brown, and Paddington.

My London Visit

I went to London with my family the week that Margaret Thatcher died. Here are some pictures of things that we saw:

Hampton Court Palace

Platform 9 3/4!!

Tower of London

A raven at the Tower of London

St Paul's Cathedral

A fox we saw in our back garden!

Trafalgar Square

The British Museum

Kensington Palace (here I am talking to the librarian)

Queen Victoria's wedding dress

A blue whale skeleton at the Natural history museum

Buckingham Palace

Changing of the guard

Museum of London

Me and Boudicca!

Big Ben

Family history

This week Jacob, Rebecca and I have been learning a bit about our family history. Mum has found a lot of convicts in our family tree. One day this week, we wrote a list together of the convicts. We also worked out where they came from and why they were sent to Australia. You can follow the link to the list.

And another day we worked out where mum's side of the family came from and put what we found on a map. There is already a map that my grandpa did for dad's side so we looked at that too. Mum's family all came from Scotland, England and Ireland. Here is my map.

The Easter holidays

On Friday we went to church (since it was Good Friday!). In the afternoon we did a walking tour of Cambridge and learnt about some of the history.

This is a statue of William Wilberforce, who helped to stop the slave trade.

This is the Great Court at Trinity College, and the fountain where Lord Byron bathed with his clothes off. He also wanted to bring a bear into the College as his pet.

On Saturday we went to the Fitzwilliam Museum. The Fitzwilliam Museum is a really good museum. It has lots of different sections. After that we went to one of our friends' houses. They live in an apartment and come from Australia. We went to a nearby duck pond and park. It was a lot of fun!

On Easter Sunday after church we went to Wimpole Hall and did an Easter egg trail. It was really fun. (Lots of National Trust houses to Easter egg trails.)

The egg and spoon challenge

Grooming a donkey at Wimpole Hall

On Monday we went to Long Melford and a house called Melford Hall. Melford Hall is a Tudor house. Beatrix Potter visited there sometimes because her cousins lived there. They called her Cousin Beatie. The room she stayed in was the West bedroom. She had a place in her room where she kept all her animals.

This is a mutliplication table painted on the wall of the Lady Chapel in the church at Long Melford. They used to use it as a school.

This is Beatrix Potter's room at Melford Hall

We also visited Bury St Edmunds and saw the ruins of an abbey.

Here I am standing in front of the Abbey ruins.

Frogs

On Tuesday we went to the Botanical Gardens. We went to look at some frog-spawn to check if they had hatched.

Mum decided that we should learn about frogs and do a life cycle about frogs.

Here is my life cycle.

It says:

1. The English common frog hibernates in winter. The frogs start in October and end in January then the frogspawn are born.

2. When the frogs are born they hatch and turn into tadpoles. Tadpoles are the early stage of frogs.

3.  The tadpole has it hind legs grown before its front legs.

4. The tadpole then grows their front legs. They are then at the start of being a frog.

5. The frog loses its tail. It is then a froglet.

6. The froglets then turn into adult frogs.

The house we are staying in, has a life cycle kit of a frog and butterfly. I put the life cycle of a frog together as well:

Anglesey Abbey

On Saturday we went to Anglesey Abbey.  At Anglesey Abbey I won two awards.

On was at Lode Mill and the other at Lord Fairburn's house.

I won the one at Lode Mill because I spun a small version of a grinding stone 6 times.

I won the other medal at Lord Fairhaven's house because I completed a quiz.

Lord Fairhaven's house had a lot of very expensive things. He had too many of them a bit too many horses. He had a lot of collections. He collected silver and gold horses, statues, clocks and art.

We aso walked through the gardens and saw this pheasant.