Forest School: Blog items
Date: 22nd Mar 2021 @ 8:07pm
As a class we have been talking about the different changes we have noticed over the past few weeks. These have included; new plants growing, buds on trees, daffodils in our garden, blossom on trees and new life. This afternoon the children paired up and went outside with their clip boards to complete their spring checklist in the forest school area. The children enjoyed looking around the forest school area to find different signs of spring.
"Look Mrs Clark, a bird has made a nest in the tree. The birds are going to lay their eggs" Elliott
"The blossom is growing on the trees" Ellie-Mae
"The trees have buds on them. The leaves are going to grow" Harley-May
"The temperature is warmer today" Ella-Rose
Making animal habitats at Forest School
Date: 19th Mar 2021 @ 10:10am
This week at Forest School the children enjoyed learning about animals and their habitats. We talked about different habitas and what animals need to survive. The children then worked together to collect sticks, leaves, grass and stones in their buckets and used them to create their own animal homes.
"I'm putting leaves in mine to keep the animals warm" Ellie-Mae
"We are sticking the sticking in the ground to make a wall" Arthur.
Then we explored the Forest School area and looked for different animal footprints in the mud.
Afterwards we were made a fire to boil the water ready for our warm vimto drink. We talked about how to keep ourselves safe whilst making a fire. The we discussed the three different elements we need to make a fire; heat, wood and air.
"Lisa wears a special fire glove so she doesn't burn her hand' Lyra-Rose
"Never go in the middle of the circle beacuse you might get burnt" Oscar.
At the end of the session we enjoyed a lovely drink of warm vimto and sang some songs around the fire.
We did it again! We renewed our Green Flag Status!
Date: 16th Mar 2021 @ 9:36am
Well done to the Eco Warriors who worked hard during these unprecedented times to ensure this happened. Karyn from Eco Schools said “It is a true reflection of the school’s determination to make a real difference”.
Date: 16th Mar 2021 @ 9:34am
As I’m sure you have heard on the news, there has been extensive discussion about the environmental impact the HS2 development will have, including requiring the clearance of established and crucially important woodland habitats along its path. To mitigate the impact of this habitat removal, the HS2 project commissioned a nursery in Wales to grow several thousand oak trees that were supposed to be planted as new woodlands. However, despite growing the trees and them now being ready to go to their new homes, no plans to plant them were ever made, making it a double disaster that woodland has been cleared, but the new trees have never been planted.
After hearing about this through word of mouth, a few amazing guys in Liverpool raised some money to buy 3000 of these little oak trees from the nursery, who had to cover their basic costs, and those guys spread the word to find homes for all of these trees. The Lancashire Wildlife Trust heard about it and asked across their Nature Friendly Schools network. Westminster Primary is our Local Nature Friendly school and they spread the word to other Blackpool primary schools. It is these baby trees that our school received and altogether 33 schools across Lancashire, Manchester & North Merseyside offered homes for around 800 of these rescued trees.
They are all oak trees. Oak trees can live for several hundred years. So when we plant our little trees we are planting a legacy that will live far into the future, and provide a truly valuable habitat for insects and birds. By giving homes to these little trees we are doing a wonderful thing for nature.
The Eco Warriors helped plant them around the school grounds.
Holly Class Forest School Fun!
Date: 11th Mar 2021 @ 8:47pm
It was a very breezy day but Holly Class wrapped up warm and ventured out to take part in Forest School.
First, we warmed up by playing running games and hide a seek and then we used our beady eyes to look for circles in the environment. We found them everywhere, on a bench, on logs and canes, at the bird stop, in plant pots and even in the pond (which had lots of frog spawn!). We then went exploring, trampiing through the soggy grass, raking the mud to plant grass seeds and building towers and seats to sit on using the logs. Alfie even found a frog! The children worked together, helping each other to lift, build, carry and explore.
By the time it was time to go, we were all very muddy and and very hungry. Before we went to lunch, Mrs McAllister hosed all the children down which was to their absolute delight!
Date: 9th Mar 2021 @ 8:20pm
This week Year Two were finally all back together in the classroom and we were so happy to see each other. To support our Science topic on plants, we had fun planting sunflower seeds. We are going to take care of these in school until the weather gets a little warmer. Then we will be sending them home and seeing who can grow the tallest sunflower. Good luck everyone!
Date: 5th Mar 2021 @ 5:24pm
The Nursery children had a wonderful time at Forest School. They listened to the story Goldilocks and The Three Bears and then made porridge for the bears. They splashed in muddy puddles, built towers by balancing wooden logs, did some super mark making by painting water on to wood, tested out their balance on the obstacle course and had a yummy flapjack for snack! We know they enjoyed themselves beacuse they came back covered in mud!
Date: 4th Mar 2021 @ 3:56pm
This afternoon, Cedar had great fun in our Boundary Forest School area.
First, we went to look in the ponds and couldn't believe how much frogspawn there was! We discussed the lifecycle of frogs and can't wait to watch them grow.
Next, we made jam donuts, yum! We lit the fire and set to work making the batter, before frying our donuts over the fire. They were absolutely delicious! We showed good resilience when using flints to start the fire and good team work when making the donut batter.
Date: 3rd Mar 2021 @ 2:14pm
Over half term our Year 1 children received a little surprise in the post!
It was a lovely surprise to recieve a bean seed, a bean diary and a bean song! We had some great ideas about what we might be doing with our seeds, but we all waited patiently until our first science lesson to find out what we we're going to do with our beans!
We talked about how we were going to help our beans grow big and strong, and what scientific questions we could ask before following the instructions to plant our bean. We then sequenced the instructions we had followed in the correct order and started our bean diary with our initial observations!
Date: 2nd Mar 2021 @ 8:05pm
In PSHE we have been discussing looking after our environment. After looking at the amount of litter around the school, Year 6 stepped into action. We took a litter picker, a bin bag and spent a good hour cleaning up the rubbish around Boundary. We managed to collect 6 full bin bags worth of rubbish. Our message to people is to take your rubbish home with you or use a bin if there is one in the local area.
We will be working on letters to the council and local residents soon to discuss what we can do with not only the litter problem but the dog foul too as we found quite a lot of that!!
Date: 9th Dec 2020 @ 4:58pm
This week our Year 3 Eco Warriors planted some tree saplings in the Forest School area. Hopefully we will see them thrive and grow when we have our Forest school sessions in January. The children were very sensible although it was muddy! We have been talking about how we can take care of our environments both inside and outside of school and demonstrate responsibility by putting litter in the bin, taking our rubbish home from the park and ensuring that we are Eco friendly at home! All these things will help to improve and look after our planet.
It's been a busy week in Year 4!
Date: 4th Dec 2020 @ 10:57am
Wow what a busy week in Year 4! We had great fun at Forest School (pictures to follow next week, so keep your eyes peeled!). This week, we made our Design and Technology Toddler Nightlight prototypes. We are going to evaluate them so we can make a final design. Also this week, our Eco Warriors planted Oak tree saplings around the school grounds. We cannot wait to see them grow over the years.
Date: 1st Dec 2020 @ 10:27am
Last week, we started our first of three Forest School sessions. The children firstly gathered around the campfire to see if they could remember the Forest School rules - they were great! Then we had lots of time to explore our Forest School area and make nests. The children had to make a nest thinking about which animal it would be for and how it would keep their animal safe and warm in the cold winter weather. Next week, we are going to be lighting the fire and having s'mores and hot chocolate! We can't wait for them to keep us warm in the cold December weather.
Date: 19th Nov 2020 @ 8:28am
This week in Year Five, we have been participating in Forest School sessions and have loved learning how to build a fire (on which we then toasted marshmallows), den building and playing outdoor team games! On anti-bullying day, we discussed why we shouldn’t use stereotypes and make assumptions about people or unfairly judge people because of their appearance or ethnicity. We all wore odd socks to remind each other that it is ok to be different.
Date: 9th Nov 2020 @ 3:30pm
This week the children have been busy planting bulbs ready for Spring. They learnt which way round they should be planted in the ground and hopefully we should see crocus, tulips and daffodils blooming in our garden next year!
"You dig a hole in the ground then put the bulb in...flowers will grow" Oscar.
"...it goes this way round...this hairy bit at the bottom" Alfie.
Take a look at our photos!
Date: 5th Nov 2020 @ 8:27pm
We could not have picked a better day for our first Forest School session - bonfire night! We discussed fire safety and learned that fires need three elements to survive: heat, oxygen and fuel. With this in mind, we collected a variety of dry sticks and learned how to safely use a fire lighting steel. When the fire was lit, we toasted Marshmallows, which were delicious!
Date: 20th Oct 2020 @ 9:29pm
Everyone has been very busy weeding the raised beds and preparing the pots to plant bulbs in a few weeks time. The children worked together, sharing tools, digging and chatting about the different creatures they found living in the soil.
"Look! A worm! It's wriggling!" Amy.
"It's very long (worm)" Oscar.
Date: 14th Oct 2020 @ 4:36pm
Year 1 have had a brilliant Design and Technology journey this half term. They have made their own fruit salads! The were told they were going to a Tiger Tea Party. They had to design a healthy and colourful snack to eat at the tea party. They were going to go to the tea party with characters from a book they are reading. One of the characters, Sophie, asked that the children design and make a fruit salad. The children had lots of fun and even got to do some sensory evaluations tasting the food!
Date: 3rd Oct 2020 @ 6:08pm
In Year 1 this week we have been designing and making fruit salads.
We began the week by tasting and discussing lots of different fruit options that we may want to use in our fruit salad. We used our senses of smell, touch, sight and taste to evaluate a number of different fruits, and decide which ones were the best options! We were able to each choose 4 different fruits we want to use, which we then put onto our design. We completed our initial design sheet, where we drew pictures of each fruit and then our fruit salad, looking at the size, shape and colour of each to ensure our design was bright and colourful!
After tasting, choosing and designing our fruit salad, we then got to make our finished product! We began by putting 4 instructions in order that we needed to follow to ensure we created our fruit salad hygienically and safely. We then learnt about the bridge grip, and the claw grip that we needed to use to safely cut our fruit. Finally we washed our hands, and started to create our own, individual fruit salads!
After enjoying our delicious fruit salads, we then completed an evaluation to show our thoughts and feelings about our finished product. We discussed what we liked, what we didn't like, and what we might change if we were to create our design again!
Date: 1st Oct 2020 @ 3:55pm
Year 2 have had a fantastic day participating in Forest School! The children loved being outdoors and using their problem solving skills to build bridges, make secret potions and to simply just explore nature! We all had such a great time and we can't wait for more next week!
Date: 27th Sep 2020 @ 10:18pm
We are having so much fun getting to know each other and the children are starting to make friendships and everyones confidence is growing daily. This week we read the story "Owl Babies" and talked about feeling sad when our own Mummy's go. We discussed how we know that we are safe in Nursery and that our Mummy's will come back! We made some play dough owls, owl puppets, practised our funky fingers by catching worms with tweezers and practised our counting by putting 3 owls on a tree.
As well as lots of owl fun, we also worked together this week to build dens. The children found some sticks and said they were going to make a camp fire. We talked about when you might use a camp fire and this opened up a lovely discussion about camping. We gathered together lots of resources and built some lovely dens for camping!
What a busy and fun week!
Date: 16th Mar 2020 @ 9:53pm
Year 2 spent the day discussing the impact of global warming and how it effects our environment. The children then looked at the dangers of plastic swimming around our oceans and the problem it poses to all livings things. We then explored ways we can help reduce the amount of waste we use and how important it would be for animals, natural environments and habitats. Later on the children created starfish out of recycled materials, as you can see from their designs they did a fantastic job. Well done Year 2.
Date: 13th Feb 2020 @ 8:12pm
We had a very muddy but fun forest school session this week. We explored natural and man made materials. We worked as a team to build and light a campfire then prepared jam doughnuts to cook. We sang songs around the campfire while they coked then ate them and they were delicious.
Eco Warriors - Nursery Children helping to save our future planet!
Date: 13th Feb 2020 @ 12:37pm
This week we have taken part in lots of recycling activities. Firstly, we talked about how to look after our planet and the importance of recycling. This linked to our previous knowledge of Eco Bricks, as we have been building them as part of a whole school project for the last few months. As part of our BLT for last week we were asked to either start to make our own Eco Bricks or bring some plastic bits and pieces into Nursery. Lots of children brought in bits to help us on our school project of making Eco Bricks. Our teachers in Nursery then cut up the big bits of plastic into smaller bits so we could use a long stick to push the bits of plastic into the bottles. We have also made pictures and models from recycled bits, along with cleaning out our water tray after someone had put a lot of plastic in there! We all enjoyed learning about how and what we can recycle, and how we can look after the planet for our future.
Date: 7th Feb 2020 @ 11:51am
Year three did a wonderful job for their year group assembly. We want to make an impact to our environment and what better way than inform the parents about our ECO BRICKS! These are the way we are able to reuse the non-recycling plastics and stop them going in to the oceans. Please see our Facebook page to find out how to make them! Thank you to all the parents for your continued support.
