During forest school, we see a robin in the trees above, and sometimes the robin hops around us, looking for food. So this week we are thinking about what a robin eats, and also how we can feed our birds in winter, when the food is not so plentiful.

The first question was “What does a robin eat?” We worked out that our robin must be an omnivore, as it likes mealworms and berries!

We took it in turns to put a small handful of mealworms in a tray for the robin. Some children were keener to do this than others!

We used the Merlin App on the iPad to record birdsong in the trees above. The app indentified the robin’s song!

This App is worth downloading on your phone, as it’s so easy to use and will identify many different birds by recording their songs. The link is here https://merlin.allaboutbirds.org

We them started to make our bird feeders. The first job was to find a stick to go through a hole in a cardboard tube. This is the perch for a visiting bird.

We coated the cardboard tube with margarine, like we were spreading butter on our toast!

We then sprinkled over a mixture of bird seeds over the margarine to make a turn the cardboard into a tasty treat for our robin.

And finally, we selected a suitable place for each bird feeder to hang, with help from Mrs Whittaker.

As we celebrate Harvest in school, in forest schools we went on a pumpkin hunt around school! We had clues to read, which helped us find the next pumpkin.

In Spring, we will plant our pumpkin seeds and hope that next Autumn we will have our home grown pumpkins to harvest!

Clue 1: What’s in the envelope O’Shea?

Here we are finding our way to the first pumpkin!

Our next clue

Let’s go to the fort!

Where are we going now? To the Hive!

The next pumpkin was hard to find, you need to crawl to find this one!

Now we need to find where the strawberries grow!

Now to an apple tree! Easy!

Off to the pond! We hope the pumpkin is not IN the pond…

Next clue. Where is the ground coloured blue?

And finally our last pumpkin!

We counted, sorted, decided on our favourite pumpkin, and then enjoyed a reward for all our pumpkin work!

This week we collected 3 different shaped leaves from the woodland for leaf printing. We carefully covered the back of the leaf with paint and then printed onto a piece of paper. With great excitement, we carefully peeled the leaf off, to reveal a print showing the veins!

Here is a slideshow of our work in forest schools this week

This week in Forest Schools we planted bulbs. The children looked carefully at the daffodil bulbs and thought they looked like onions.

In the year 1 outdoor area there are pots planted with daffodils, tulips and crocuses.

At Allerton CE Primary we are fortunate to have extensive grounds around the school, and this year my role is lead Forest School sessions with our Year 1 children. I take groups of children into our woodland area for planned sessions that enable the children to engage and explore the natural environment. 

These are the activities so far:

We explored our woodland area to find 6 natural objects. We looked carefully to see what we had found and then played a memory game ( Kim’s game)

We found evergreen leaves and punched shapes in the leaves using a decorative hole punches.

We self register on our evergreen tree by hanging our own small log decoration on the tree.

Our best sessions are when it’s raining! We have waterproof trousers and jackets to wear and a canopy over the log seats.

This week we searched for tree seeds and planted up pots, ready for germination in the spring. We went on seed gathering hunt, and spotted lots of berries too.

The Reception children enjoyed the beautiful weather on Friday and went for a walk through the woods. We found a lovely spot to sit and used our senses to observe and explore the surroundings. The children then drew a picture of their favourite flower, insect or tree that they had looked at. Reception were very creative and came up with some amazing art work of the world around us . We even laid down and had a quiet moment where we watched the clouds and talked about the different shapes they made.

Great art work Reception

This week 3YON have been on minibeast hunt. Each child took a magnifying glass and went to discover what minibeasts they could find around the school grounds. The children found some webs on the cherry trees and noticed that it was caterpillars that had made them. They also found lots of lady birds, bees, ants, beetles and snails. One child commented, “I found a buzzing bee on the flowers.” The children had lots of fun on their hunt and have been sharing what they have found with their teachers and friends.

What minibeasts can you find at home?

The children at Nursery have been enjoying the sunshine and going on a Spring walk around the school. We used our senses to listen to the birds, smell the flowers and look for wild life in the pond. ” They smell lovely.” One child said.

The children talked about the flowers and discussed the different colours, sizes and shapes. “I like the orange one.” A child observed. We talked about the names of the flowers and the leaves growing on the trees. The children also visited the pond and we found some water snails. We’ll done nursery

Hopefully next time we will find some frog spawn.

4H thought we would make the most of the fantastic weather yesterday and take our Water Cycle model creations into the outdoor classroom. The children were tasked with creating a 3D model to show this model including our key vocabulary of ’Condensation’, ’Precipitation’ and ’Evaporation’.