From the archive

Last year when we were exploring setting up a Forest School we had a Viking Day day where children made tree spirits from clay and other materials they found on the site. Here is some of their work.

Someone even recorded the little ceremony we had to welcome the tree spirits into our grounds.

Moving Water Challenge

Just how many ways can you think of moving a carton of water without touching it with your hands?
This was the challenge the other week for children in their lessons and also some visiting Governors.
Here are some of the children's ideas:-

Once you have got your idea, how well will it work and can you perform under pressure in a race? The winning children were those that got the most water back, no prizes for super fast empty cartons!
On your marks.....

Racing......                                                                             

Finished.......

 And our Governors too!

Finding the age of a tree

Planting Willow

Our order of willow arrived today and despite the cold weather the ground was quite dig able in places so we quickly got to work preparing the soil and planting as much as we could.

Mud Pit

Extending the school site over the past few weeks has opened up a larger area for our mud pit to now become useful. The children have had great fun exploring how water flows, making pathways for it to flow down and finding out how Ancient Egyptians might have made their irrigation channels.

Some have also found that the combination of mud and water becomes very attractive to their wellingtons!

Ghost story and our trees

Much of the ghost story (see earlier post) is based on fact and this led us to start exploring the history of the trees on our site. We know from photographs and historical documentation that the school site is in the once grounds of Gilbertstone House, which was knocked down in 1939. we also know that there was a boating lake in the gardens and have a photograph to prove it.

Using a simple calculation we measured the trunks of the trees to try and find out their approximate age. Two of the trees, an oak and a beech came up with being nearly 200 years old and would certainly have been in the grounds at the time of our story.

Now we are contacting the Woodland Trust to see if either of these tres and others in the school grounds qualify for ancient tree status.

Clean Water

How do you make muddy water clean?

The children have been exploring ways to filter water to remove the mud particles and make the water look much cleaner than when they started.

Lots of children have watched Bear Grylls on TV so they were straight into using bits of material and were quite surprised by the outcome.

Other children used sand, small stones or combined methods and repeated the process to get the water as clean as possible.

Did the teacher try any? You'll just have to ask the children.
Please don't try this at home.