WildTime

Spending time outdoors is fun. We all appreciate a little bit of sunshine, a warm breeze, hearing birdsong or a refreshing summer rain. But learning a little about nature also helps to connect us to our surroundings and to feel a part of our wider world.

Research is also revealing to us the health benefits of being out in nature through things like a simple walk, forest bathing or quiet moments of mindfulness.

Whatever your motivation for spending time outdoors there are plenty of places to find encouragement and ideas.

Here is the first organisation and links to their materials to help you along your way.

The Wild Network website has many ideas including a weekly set of challenges which can be done either in or outdoors. I particularly like their animal clothes challenge. What animal can you make your clothes into? Here's an idea:-

Click here to see some more.

They also have walking bingo cards, a different one each week and a free film which introduces how the wild network was started.

The challenge I've taken is to build an obstacle course for a wild animal.

Over time quite a few creatures have visited our garden, i'll share them in future posts, but a the moment we have a couple of squirrels that come each morning.

Now these squirrels aren't very bright. To stop them taking the bird food I put up a nut feeder just for them with a lid. 

What did they do? They ate it! Don't believe me? Here's the evidence or what's left of it.

So without any high hopes I decided to build a squirrel run. The plan was for them to run along the top of the fence, along a rope to the first tray of nuts. Then along the rope and onto the arch to a basket with more nuts suspended from the arch.

Needless to say it didn't work out like this so the run was adapted and here is a short video to show you how it all went.

An adaptation of the run is under construction. The magpie ate all the nuts in the tray and then the squirrel discovered running up the stick. 

If you feel inspired it would be great to hear how you got on. Have fun😃

Mud Pies

Here's a new challenge for the week.

When Year 3 take part in their Scrumdiddlyumptious topic Forest School has a massive Mud Pie Bake Off.

A bake off always makes me think of chocolate cake, my favourite!
This poem must be the one most often requested over the years.

This year we saw some amazing creations which you can see in the pictures below.

Remember Gnorman and now his friends are always hiding in Forest School. Look out for a troll, a fairy and a doorway to the Fairy World. (Click on the picture to make it large)

So can you design and make the most spectacular showstopper of a mud pie ever? No time limits now, be creative. If you are very lucky and have a sand pit in your garden why not make one out of sand. whatever you choose all you need is a bucket, flower pots or just your hands for moulding, things you can find in the garden (don't go and pick all the flowers that have just started to grow - you might make someone annoyed!) and of course a good dose of imagination.
Have fun😀

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 .......