Another busy month for all Blackberries mini explorers this month, where the children have been focusing on the wildlife that lives and grows in our nature areas. The children have been creating lovely artwork with the natural resources they find in the forest and in the gardens, they used leaves, flowers and many more items.
M; Shape, space and measure: “Notices simple shapes and patterns in pictures” (22-36)
The children have taken on the very important job of caring for the wildlife living in the nature areas. As classes the children have been using teamwork to refill all the bird feeders with some yummy birdseed. The children have also had some new bird feeders that are nice and bright like spring flowers to see if we can attract some different birds into the gardens.
CL; Speaking: “Questions why things happen and gives explanations. Asks e.g. who, what, when, how” (30-50)
The children have been learning everything about hedgehogs this month, they learnt about how hedgehogs like to live in long grass and how they only come out at nighttime. We then bought some hedgehog houses to help the hedgehogs around our settings find somewhere to live. The children worked as a team to carry them to the perfect place, picked by them. The children can’t wait to see if we get any hedgehogs come visit us.
UTW; The world: “Shows care and concern for living things and the environment” (30-50)
The children have explored the animals living in the nature areas this month by carrying out nature hunts, working as teams to communicate what they were looking for and spoke about what animal they had found. The children then used non-fiction books to create the minibeasts they found using the clay and paper to draw the birds they had seen.
PSED; Making Relationships: “Keeps play going by responding to what others are saying or Doing” (30-50)
Some children have had lots of fun getting down and dirty exploring mud, the children have been experimenting with what happens when mud gets wet by adding lots of water to it. The children used teamwork and risk taking carrying the big buckets of water. They even made some mud pies with bird seed to feed the birds.
UTW; The world: “Explores objects by linking together different approaches” (16-26)
It’s not just been the children enjoying the Forest School sessions this month, some staff have undertaken some Forest School refresher training to give them more ideas and experience in carrying out fun and engaging sessions with their key children. The staff had a go at making their own dens and their own clay animals.
This month we would love for you to get involved at home here is an activity that you can do in your own gardens with your littler foresters, all you need is a cardboard tube, peanut butter and some bird seed. These make great upcycled bird feeders for the birds living in your gardens.
Happy Foresting
