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Outdoor Learning

Outdoor Learning

Every class has dedicated Outdoor Learning time during the school year. Whole class sessions take place on Thursday afternoons, you will be informed by letter when it is your children’s turn.

The children’s learning in the Thursday sessions are facilitated by Mrs Drinkwater (FS Level 1) and Mrs Kuht (FS Level 1).

FOREST SCHOOL!

Term 5 sees the start of our Forest School Club. We are thrilled to be offering this mixed-age child-centered group. We look forward to seeing our children grow deeper connections to nature whilst developing their confidence and self-esteem.

POTATO COMPETITION NEWS! These are our potatoes at 9 weeks old:

: Beneath the Soil potato

: Reception Class

: Class 1

: Class 2

: Class 3

: Class 4

: Class 5

: Class 6

Class 1 were challenged to make shelters to protect them from the forecast rain – how well did they do?

APRIL 2018

Class 1 have been REALLY busy! They have looked closely at the parts of a tree, found over a hundred different ‘greens’ in our school grounds, identified native British animals, birds, fish and insects, crafted sculptures with woven sticks, found ducks and frog spawn in the pond, made up stories starring our native British animals, planted trees and flowers AND made signs to help people know what to do to help wildlife. Wow!

: Whose bones?

: Sheep or cow bones?

: Fox or badger skull?

: Identifying parts of a tree…

: Tree trunk

: Twigs!

: Are these trunks too? But they’re skinny.

: Tree root

: Tree branch.

: How do we keep warm on a cold day? We wiggle!

: Warming-up exercises.

: It was wonderfully wet, so we squelched in the mud.

: My greens

: Is this the same green?

: Have you got this green?

: We found frog spawn in the pond.

POTATO COMPETITION NEWS These are our potatoes at 7 weeks old:

: ‘Beneath the Soil’ potato

: roots beneath the soil

: Reception Class

: Proud Class 1s!

: Class 3- can you see the two rows?

: Class 4

: Class 5

: Class 6

Will Class 1 rise to the challenge and achieve their Bronze Wild Challenge Award? Watch this space…

Potato Competition News These are our potatoes on the first day back:

: Class 1’s Jester

: A Class 1 sign

: Class 2’s Jester

: A Class 2 sign

: Class 3’s Sharpe’s Express

: Class 4’s Rocket WINNERS SO FAR!

: Class 5’s Rocket

: A Class 5 sign

: Class 6’s Rocket

: Reception Class’ Rocket

: The ‘Beneath the Soil’ potato

: Can you see the roots yet?

MARCH 2018

Potatoes were planted on 06.03.18 – let the competition begin!

March also saw the RSPB visit and run Connect to Nature workshops for every class – Reception class explored our grounds looking for wildlife (sadly we didn’t find any hedgehogs), classes 1-6 developed ‘Wild Words’ inspired by considering how animals would journey through our grounds. Can you spot the foxes, badgers and buzzards in these images?

SCIENCE WEEK: Hedgehogs! Did you know that our most famous mammal is under threat of extinction? Mrs Tiggy Winkle needs our help! Hedgehogs (or hedgepigs or…? ask your children what other names they have) need undisturbed places to sleep and hibernate, good scruffy hedge habitats, rich foraging areas with plenty of slugs and snails, and they need to be able to travel – they walk around a mile every night to find food. Most of all – lay off those poisonous slug pellets!

We checked our school grounds for signs of hedgehogs, places they might find food, and ensured that our hedgehog highways are open so they can travel. Find out more at the Hedgehog Street website. We designed and built hedgehog cars and used potential energy (rubber bands!) to move them. We wrote to schools in the North of England to encourage them to also spread the word about the importance of helping hedgehogs.

Class 4 made great ‘hedgehog heaps’ in quiet, out of the way spots – someone to sleep for a day, or to hibernate for a whole winter. FUN FACT: hedgehogs are ‘nocturnal’ which means they sleep in the day and come out at night. Humans are ‘diurnal’ which means we sleep at night and come out in the day.

What’s next? = Visit a hoglet on an open day at Secret World Wildlife Rescue, or help hedgehogs year round by supporting our local Prickles Hedgehog Rescue charity shop in Cheddar.

: Hedgehog highway

: Searching in hedges

: A possible nest

: Good food sources?

: Would they like this?

: Would a hog sleep here?

SNOW!!! Can you draw or photograph the snow?

Can you see the snow crystals on Mrs Amos’ coat?

FEBRUARY 2018

‘Chitting’ means letting the potatoes start to sprout in the light. This speeds up their growing.

GROW YOUR OWN POTATO CHALLENGE STARTS! Potato chitting started on 20.02.18. Each class is competing for prizes – most potatoes grown, individual heaviest potato, tallest plant, most leaves on a plant, best decorated plant sign – what else could we do?

Class 4 identified lots of trees on our nature walk towards Canada Combe. Mrs Fry got very excited tracking animals by their paw prints, hoof prints and poo! (What are sheep prints called?)

Class 4 enjoyed a Japanese style ‘picture viewing party’. We each decided if we preferred the view of the trees (natural) or the town (man-made).

BIG SCHOOLS’ BIRDWATCH – JANUARY & FEBRUARY 2018

Several classes took time out to observe, identify and count the birds visiting our school grounds. We used binoculars, identification keys, birdsong apps, tallies and graphs to help us. We uploaded our results to join the 60,000 people from over 1500 schools doing citizen science! See the nationwide results here: Big Schools’ Birdwatch results

JANUARY 2018

Class 5 enjoyed making birdfeeders to encourage birds to visit school before the Big School’s Birdwatch.

: Can you describe how this feels?

: “ucky”

: “gritty”

: “squidgy”

: Figuring out which knot to tie

: Pine-cone feeder

: Pine-cone feeder

We needed a fire circle – luckily Class 5 found some good logs! We learnt how to safely move heavy things by carrying and rolling (lift with your legs not your back!).

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER 2017

Class 3 investigated our natural environment really thoroughly – from the top of the trees to under the soil – everywhere was inspected!

We found a bug – do you know what it is?

Enjoy our Art Gallery!

We visited Des Phippen Park and saw, heard and smelt lots of new things – sweet-smelling rotting apples, noisy mallard ducks and tiny mushrooms growing in the grass. We also pulled down the Veil of Silence and drew what we heard.