Acorn Club » Newsletter

Happy New Year to you all. I hope you had a good Christmas, though that seems like a long time ago!

This time of year is fairly cold, will there be any snow? Will there be enough to go sledging, or build snowmen? Have you ever thought of building a different type of snow sculpture? You could choose your favorite animal.

With the cold weather it is tempting to stay indoors but wrap up warm and persuade your parents to go for a walk. It may seem like there is not much wildlife about in winter but if you look and listen carefully you may be quite surprised. There are not many people about at Kelling Heath at the moment so the wildlife can wander the woods in peace. Just a few days ago I saw a muntjac deer, these are normally very secretive animals. On bright days there is lots of lovely bird song. Have any of you put food out for the birds in your garden? It’s a great way to get some close up views and help the birds at the same time.

BIRD WORD SCRAMBLE
Below is a list of birds I’ve seen recently but the letters have got jumbled up. Can you work out what they are?
BONIR
EGART ITT
TUME NAWS
DRAMALL
NIPK-DOOFET ESOGO
DETTUF KUDC
RANB WOL
GONL-LITEAD TTI
GEDRNIW

Make a 2004 Calendar

The New Year has got under way so why not make a calendar to hang on your wall. You need 12 sheets of paper all the same size, they might be long and thin, or square – you decide. Label them up with the names of the months. Write on the days and dates for each of the months, ask to borrow a diary from someone so you know how many days are in each month.

Now for the fun bit – decorating each page. Think about wildlife you would see or associate with each month. February might be a winter scene, April a chick or rabbit, August a starfish on a beach, September some autumn leaves. When you have thought of what picture to put on each page think how you will make your picture, use paints, crayons or pens. Cotton wool makes good snow, you could make leaf prints or rubbings for autumn. Make a mosaic tile effect picture by cutting out little pieces of different coloured paper, arrange them to make your picture and glue them down. Make a collage of things you find on a walk or pictures cut from magazines. Be imaginative – try to make each picture look completely different.

When you are finished punch a hole in the centre of the top of each page. Put the pages in the right order then thread some string through to fasten them together and hang them up by.

Do you know…

How snowflakes are made?

Snow is not just frozen rain. Snowflakes are made up of 2 – 200 separate snow crystals.

Snow crystals are formed around tiny bits of dirt that have been carried up into the atmosphere by the wind. So snow crystals are really dust dressed up in ice.

Scientists think that there are really 4 shapes of snow crystals. The shape depends on the temperature at which it was formed, that is the temperature of the cloud it came from.

As the crystals grow they become heavier and fall to earth. As they fall they clump together forming snowflakes.

1. Needle	2.Column	3. Flat plate	4. Star

Can you help the squirrel find its way to its stash of nuts?