Forest School: Blog items
Date: 15th Oct 2022 @ 6:58pm
This half term Year 1 have been learning all about our local area. As part of this learning we went on a local area walk around Grange Park. Prior to leaving school, we explored photos of past and present Grange Park and discussed what we thought we might see. Whilst on our walk, we observed different types of houses, spotted physical and human features and talked about the current changes taking place. We we're also lucky enough to visit @thegrange, where we we're shown around the gardens, read a book in the library and told all about what @thegrange has to offer.
Year 2 Forest School Fun Part 2
Date: 6th Oct 2022 @ 4:02pm
Today, year two continued their forest school fun with their second session of the term. Today we began the lesson, by learning how to tie a simple knot and practised the skill a few times on some rope. We then used our new skills and knowledge to create a friendship bracelet, we all chose a colour to represent ourselves, one to represent our class and a final colour to represent nature. After that, we were tasked with a mission of making a party for all the ugly bugs to attend and got very creative- some even had slides and beds! We are looking forward to our final session next week.
Year 2's First Forest School Fun!
Date: 29th Sep 2022 @ 3:39pm
Today, Year Two enjoyed their first Forest School session with Jenna and Michelle who had planned some fun activities for us. We began the session by completing some tasks for the Gruffalo finding things that lived in trees, near flowers and under logs linking our learning from yesterday to the fun. Then Michelle kindly read us the story of the Gruffalo and we were experts and could join in with parts of the story! Lastly, we were tasked with the mission of creating a nest for a bird of our choosing, thinking carefully about where we were going to place the nest and the materials we used. We had lots of fun linking our Science learning of living things and their habitats to our forest school fun and cannot wait for our next two sessions.
Year 2 Exploring Microhabitats
Date: 29th Sep 2022 @ 7:58am
Today we explored different types of microhabitat. Once we had learnt what a microhabitat was, we went into the forest school area to search for microhabitats and hunted for minibeasts. We explored a range of microhabitats including under logs, in the soil, leaf piles, rocks and grass. When we found minibeasts we got very excited! Once we returned inside, we discussed how different minibeasts prefer different habitats and came up with adjectives to describe the habitats.
YEAR 5 (A Very Wet) Forest Schools Session
Date: 26th Sep 2022 @ 12:34pm
On Thursday, pupils in Hawthorn and Rowan had to show resilience and toughness as our Forest School sessions were interrupted by heavy rain. Pupils built dens (which were tested by the weather), made tie-dyed strips of material, and had a snack of apple and soft cheese. We were proud that the children persevered in the challenging conditions and still had an enjoyable time.
Year 5 Exploring Strong sketches
Date: 21st Sep 2022 @ 8:54pm
We explored using heavier, darker pencils and charcoal to sketch onto recylced maps this week, to continue our journey. Our aim was to make our sketches stand out against the print of the maps. We sketched mountains and animals with focus and some people really used the features of the maps to enhance their sketches.
Year 5 Safe Skills in Forest School
Date: 15th Sep 2022 @ 4:04pm
Today was about gaining some skills in being safe around equipment, in particular, knives, axes and mallets. We cut some sticks down, used the knives and peelers to whittle them to a flat surface and decorated them as tree markers. We also made a small safe fire and cooked the harvest of pears, which were delicious. We also built dens, created our own games, found another frog and worked well as a team on our knots!
Nursery Take Care of the Outdoors
Date: 13th Sep 2022 @ 8:35pm
We are lucky to have a wonderful outdoor area in nursery and everyone takes pride in keeping the area neat and tidy. The children love caring for the plants and creatures that are living in the garden and work together to keep it looking fabulous. This week the children have been busy picking up the litter that gets blown in. Using the litter pickers is a great way of developing fine motor skills! They have also been sharing the hose pipe and watering cans to keep the plants healthy and building realtionships with each other at the same time. Speaking of relationships, we found a new friend in our garden - a giant slug! We were all fasinated by the little fella and wanted to make sure he didn't go hungry. What else would you feed a slug but the carrots growing in the garden!
Year 5 A Fresh look at Forest School
Date: 8th Sep 2022 @ 12:31pm
What a great time of Year to be outdoors! We managed to avoid the showers and had a lovely morning exploring the Forest School environment. We went on a mini beast hunt with the magnifying glasses and observed the habitats. We found lots of insects, arachnids and bugs lurking under the rocks and logs. A Frog leapt in! We all looked at it's camoflage, while learning the differences between frogs and toads. There was lots of seasonal fruit including mini apples, pears and plums, but they weren't yet ripe enough to pick. We also explored and enjoyed spending time with our friends outdoors and catching up casually after the holidays.
Karson planted some trees using the fallen fruit's seed.
Harley enjoyed working with his team to build dens and shelters.
Molliemae worked with her friends to make a chill out zone in their den, with books and colouring.
Darin made a cake masterpiece recipe including flowers, mud and fruits. He used his imagination to create a bakery business too!
Year 2's Final Forest School Fun
Date: 22nd Jul 2022 @ 3:37pm
Yesterday saw our final forest school session of Year 2 before we begin completing our passport in Year 3. This week, we thought about our senses and took a moment to lie on the floor and think about the things we could see, hear, taste, smell and feel- some of us were lucky enough to be joined by a miniature spider. We then looked at different cloud formations and tried to see if we could see any different ones in the sky as well as playing a game of forest school bingo. To end the session, we toasted crumpets on the fire.
Date: 18th Jul 2022 @ 12:21pm
Nursery are taking good care of our beautiful new garden. We have loved watching all the sunflowers grow taller and taller and have made sure that we water our new flowers and plants so the can stay strong and healthy. We have also been exploring our new sensory path and have loved listening to the different sounds the stones make and talking about the differernt textures.
Year 2's Forest School Fun Part 2
Date: 14th Jul 2022 @ 4:40pm
Another Thursday of forest school fun! Today our focus was finding mini beasts in the area and identifying them using a classification sheet. Once we had found lots of mini beasts we made them using modelling clay and drew pictures of them using felt tips. Whilst some classified bugs other children had plenty of fun in the mud whilst trying to bring worms to the surface. They made mud angels and were enjoying getting dirty jumping in and out of the mud pit. Finally, others had a nice time climbing trees under the supervision of forest school leader Claire.
Whole School Pupil Pipeline for Water Aid!
Date: 14th Jul 2022 @ 10:30am
Date: 11th Jul 2022 @ 4:01pm
On Friday we gave money to our chosen charity 'Water Aid'. In an assembly the school council talked about the charity and how money raised can change the lives of those who don't have clean water to drink. We passed a bucket of water all the way round the school, from Nursery to Year 6. This was to make us think of the long journeys some people make to get their water, which can often be dirty and full of disease. As a school, we raised £112.84 - we hope the money will help those less fortunate than us.
Date: 7th Jul 2022 @ 3:53pm
Today, it was our first Forest School session with Jenna and Claire. We began the session by listening to our environment to see if we could see or hear any birds around us. We saw lots and a few different species too which we loved because in our last sessions we built bird boxes to attract them into our nature area. Then, we discussed what materials birds used to make their nests and attempted to make our own bird nests using the resources we could find including sticks, twigs, leaves, mud and grass. Finally, some of us made our own birds to take home. We are looking forward to our second session next week.
Date: 23rd Jun 2022 @ 5:29pm
The chilren have been working really hard to keep our outside area clean and tidy. They went on a litter picking mission, collected a lot of rubbish and made the garden look beautiful! Using the litter pickers was a great for their fine motor skills too as they have to squeeze it hard to pinch the litter - a great work out for tiny fingers!
Year 6 Forest School Fun in the Sun
Date: 17th Jun 2022 @ 7:52am
Year 6 enjoyed their first session of Forest School this week and were blessed with lovely weather. The children learned how to identify trees from their leaves and how to estimate the age of the trees in Boundary's Forest School area. They went on to complete a variety of tasks including fire lighting and making jewellery from sticks. At the end of the session they enjoyed toasting marshmallows on the fire they had built themselves. A great day outside!
Date: 16th Jun 2022 @ 1:06pm
We were very lucky to have some caterpillars in nursery to support our learning of growth and change. The children loved watching them grow from tiny caterpillars to big fat carterpillars! It was amazing to then see them make a cocoon and emerge as beautful butterflies! We then released them in to our garden - we had they are happy!
Year 6 - Letters of persuasion
Date: 24th May 2022 @ 10:20am
Over the past few weeks, Year 6 have been exploring and writing letters of persuasion. We looked at information about the current effects of plastic pollution and used these facts to write a letter to Boris Johnson. The letter aims to persuade the prime minister to take action with other world leaders in an attempt to slow down, and eventually stop, plastic pollution. We will be sending several of these letters to Downing Street. Let's see if we get a response!!
Year 4 Fit to Go visit Bloomfield Road
Date: 20th May 2022 @ 7:50am
Year 5 - Summer with Forest School
Date: 20th May 2022 @ 7:26am
Forest school is back and this time its sunny! This week the pupils continued working towards their level 2 awards, completing several different tasks. After a warm-up activity of 'Hide and Seek meets Among Us', pupils were whittling wood to make a small butter knife, hand knitting scarves with brightly coloured wool, and using mushrooms to light the campfire (without cotton wool). Once we had got the camp fire going, we toasted marshmallows to eat as we discussed what we had learned.
Date: 18th May 2022 @ 1:05pm
Year 5 visit Blackpool Zoo! To further their learning, Year 5 went on an adventure to learn more about the animals and natural habitats of the Zoo. From hearing about the Orangutans (and meeting Cherie who was named after Tony Blair's wife!) to watching feeding time with the elephants, we were all treated to a variety of interesting talks where we were able to learn more about how a range of animals have adapted over time to survive in their environments. It was really exciting to see the Bactrian camels being fed - they don't share with each other very well! Just before lunch we were treated to a sea lion demonstration where their natural ability to balance, swim, jump and dive were all on show - Gloria even demonstrated the importance of recycling our plastic and not throwing it on the floor or in the oceans!
Year 5 Forest School - Summer 1
Date: 13th May 2022 @ 11:28am
Year 5 have had their first out of three sessions of Forest School for this half-term.
Luckily, we had dry weather and were able to explore the forest area without getting super muddy!
The children made dens and wooden pencils, as well as exploring the pond.
We absolutely love being out in the fresh air!
Date: 12th May 2022 @ 12:09pm
This week, Reception decided to visit the pond again to observe how much the tadpoles had grown since we vsited last.
We were delighted to see that there were still some tadpoles sleeping on the stones or swimming through the water. There were no froglets or frogs to be seen - they must have been hiding or sleeping in the reeds.
Unfortunately, Reception were horrified to find loads of litter blowing around the pond and forest school area! They very quickly decided to collect it all up and put it in the bin- where it belongs! Our school grounds looks so much cleaner now.
"You shouldn't throw rubbish on the floor - it's dirty!" Olivia
"Our school looks dirty with all this rubbish " Charlie
"Put rubbish in the bin or recycle it!" Isaac
Nursery Planting Sunflower Seeds
Date: 5th May 2022 @ 5:49pm
Today Nursery planted sunflower seeds. We recycled our used milk cartons and filled them with soil. Then we carefully pushed a sunflower seed in to the soil and gave it a little drink of water - not too much though! We didn't want to drown it! Then the children wrote their names on a lolly pop stick so they knew which sunflower was theirs. We talked about how we need to care for our seeds and make sure they have enough water and light to help them grow.
