Moss' Chicks Come To Room 2

This morning Mrs Rider bought some chicks to school to share with Room 2.

What do they look like?
The chicks are fluffy and soft. They are all different colours. Some chicks are black and white, other chicks are golden and one chick is black. Some chicks have little golden dots on them. They are very little, but have grown a lot since they first hatched. They will grow much bigger. The chicks are only four weeks old. Some of the chicks have blue eyes and some chicks have brown eyes. At times you can see a golden fleck in their eyes. The chicks are all covered in cuddly feathers. Their feathers look pretty and adorable now, but as they grow older they will harden.

What do the chicks do?
The chicks eat bananas, which Mrs Rider explained is their favourite food. They hop up peoples arms and scurry across the newspaper on the ground. The chicks like to snuggle up with people, especially Max. The chicks peck at things when they are nervous. This is a defense mechanism to protect themselves. They try to run away from people that they don't know very well, for example they tried to escape our circle by running between the gaps. The chicks try to fly, but they actually can't. The baby feathers that the chicks have now are malting so that their adult feathers can come through. The chicks are quite shy because they don't know us.

Some facts about the chicks
* The chicks incubated for 21 days in their eggs before they hatched.
* The chicks squeak when you squeeze them too hard because it hurts and they can't breath.
* The chicks all came from different mothers, but only one hen raised them.
* Their little tweets might mean that they are stressed.

Keeping Safe On Our Bikes with Officer Cree

On Friday 4th of March Officer Cree came to Halcombe School to teach Room's 1 and 2 about bike safety. We started in the classroom where Officer Cree showed us how to put our helmets on properly. Before you put your helmet on you need to check that it has no cracks in it.

The first thing you need to do when you put your helmet on is slip it over your eyebrows. This is because it needs to protect your forehead and your brain. The next thing you need to check are the side straps. The straps that go around our ears need to form a tight V that finishes just under your ear. The third thing to check is that the chin strap is nice and tight. You should be able to fit 1 finger in between the strap and your chin and you should still be able to talk. It must be very tight. It is important that all the straps are tight and secure so that your helmet doesn't slip forwards and backwards, especially if you have a crash. If you have knobs at the back of your helmet you need to tighten them up last.

Officer Cree said that skating helmets were not the best helmets for protecting your head when you are on a bike because they do not do a good job of protecting your forehead.

We left the classroom and practiced putting on our helmets safely. Then we got into four groups and took our bikes to the court where Officer Cree had set up an obstacle course.

Everyone took turns riding their bikes up the court and around the cones. Officer Cree told us it was important to focus on skill and technique. It was not a race. It was important to slow down because you might crash into another person or the cones.

Some of the techniques we practiced included getting on and off your bike on the left side of your bike. This is important so that the chain on the bike does not hurt you. It is also important if you are on the rode to get on and off your bike on the left side so that your bike is in between you and the cars.

We learnt how to indicate using our arms. If you are turning left you need to hold out your left arm. If you are turning right, you need to hold out your right arm. It is important to indicate so that other people on the road know where you are going and then you wont have a crash. Before you indicate and turn, you must look over your shoulder to check that no cars or other traffic are coming.

It is very important to stop for pedestrians so that no one gets hurt or run over. We practiced with Mrs Davies' class and Mrs Turner's class when they were going to the pool.

At the end of the day Sophia thanked Officer Cree on behalf of all of us. Then we said good bye and went back to class.

We all really enjoyed learning with Officer Cree because it is important to learn how to keep ourselves safe on our bikes.

We are all really proud of each other and ourselves because everyone had a great attitude towards the day. We all showed Officer Cree respect, and everyone was an adventurer because we all took risks. The best thing about the day was that we all achieved something new! We learnt lots of things about keeping ourselves safe and we can all ride safely on the road.