Gymnastics

Here is some inspiration to get you thinking about gymnastics.

The poem is called Gymnastics by Michael Rosen and can be found in his book 

Quick, Let's Get Out Of Here.

In Forest School we do a gymnastics based activity with Year 3 called Theseus and the Minotaur linked to their Greek project. 

In small groups the children make a gymnastic type obstacle to either go over, under or to balance upon. We also focus on Health and Safety to ensure these are safe to use. Each obstacle is then added together to make a labryinth for the children to escape the Minotaur. 

Here are some example pictures of the work they completed earlier in the year.

So your challenge is simple. Can you make a gymnastics course either indoors or outdoors?

You could use things like popup tunnels or large cardboard boxes if you have them. Why not balance on a brick? Put down two sticks to represent the banks of a stream and see if you can jump across. I'm sure you have lots of ideas and we'd love to see your photos.

Remember to stay safe and get things checked out by an adult.

By the way Gnorman has gone missing again. Can you find him in the pictures above. He appears four times. Remember to click on the photo to see a larger image.

Have fun.

Where's Gnorman ?

Gnorman couldn't wait for today's post so here is an additional extra.

Can you spot Gnorman in the picture below.

(Remember calling his name won't work online!)

Click on the picture to see large.

Good luck with your hunting.

If you can't remember what he looks like see yesterday's post.

A Big Hello from Gnorman

Gnorman tells me it's been awfully quiet in Forest School for some time now. He wonders where everyone has gone and why no one tries to find him anymore. I've tried to explain but he doesn't really get it.
He says all Harrold wants to do is push his wheelbarrow about and that's just no fun.

So I suggested we could play 'Where's Gnorman?' online. All Gnorman has to do is go and hide. I'll take a photo and we'll post to see if anyone can spot him in the photo.

He thinks this is a great idea and looks very much to hearing from you all.

Watch future posts and see if you can find Gnorman in the photo.

By the way he tells me someone has been creeping into Forest School and is feeding the birds so that's good. Hopefully they will be nesting now with lots of young ones to come over the rest of the Springtime.

30 Days Wild

Children and nature go together—or should. Recent studies document the importance of introducing children to the natural world, beginning in the early years. Their social, emotional, and physical health depends on this exposure to develop. Humans are hardwired to need nature—because we are part of it. In some communities, children lack access to nature and the freedom to explore local flora and fauna. How can children care about nature if they haven’t experienced it firsthand? Adults must do what they can to ensure that children have those opportunities. 1

This morning in assembly we introduced The Wildlife Trust's 30 Days Wild.
Every session in Forest School will include a fun activity linked to the Random Acts of Wildness.

We are also encouraging children to contribute their own activities on a diary page available from the office or via the eSchools learning platform.

Children can get involved in any way they want from their back garden, local park but some may want to get more involved and can sign up here (with parental permission)

Every child will also receive a link to a Survey Monkey questionnaire via eSchools to find out how wild we are as a school.

But most of all we just want to to enjoy being outdoors.

Follow us on Twitter to find out what we are getting up to and more ideas of what you can do.

1 http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/article/connecting-young-children-with-nature

Sunflowers

The sunflower is a large inflorescence, this means the flower head is actually made of many tiny flowers called florets. Central florets look like the centre of a normal flower while the outer florets look like yellow petals and together they make up a "false flower". This natural design helps insects and birds to easily see the sunflower and after pollination every little flower or floret produces a seed.

This year we have challenged all our Forest Schoolers to grow a giant sunflower. That means by the end of the year we should have somewhere in the region of 400 growing on site. Hopefully this will lead to a mini sunflower meadow on site but we will have to see how thing go.

The first step of course is planting the seed. We have chosen the variety Russian Giant and hope to see them achieve somewhere near to their 3 metres in height.

By early April every child had planted their seed and we were beginning to find out how many had not germinated. As children came out to check on them another seed was quickly planted.

Then came the warm weather. After the cool wet lead up to Easter we were glad of our SolarDome for getting things started but the heat when the Spring sunshine gets going is just too much for the young plants and the quickly had to be moved outside.

This led to another problem only seen minimally inside, the full scale massacre of a slug attack.

Nearly a whole group lost their sunflowers and others well on their way to 50cm were scythed down.

The children's solution was to raise the pallets they were standing on off the ground but many more will need to be planted to replace those lost.

More news to follow .......

Rockets

As part of their Stargazers Cornerstones project Year 5 have been making rockets. Here are the videos of this weeks launches.

Fearfully & Wonderfully

This year our Christmas Service took the theme of Love Wins! As part of the Service we used this video from Forest School and residential visits to remind the children of just how wonderful they are.