Outdoor Learning 2017-18
In October Year 3 were looking at the topic of Pirates. They were marooned in the woods and had to build shelters to keep them safe and dry. They also completed a task following compass directions to spell out 'HELP' in letters on the ground.
In October Year 1 learnt about different woodland animals and their habitats. They visited Hirst Woods and looked at signs of Autumn and how animals prepare for winter. They built them some animal homes and identified different animal tracks.
In October Reception visited Hirst Woods to attend Wizard school and spot signs of Autumn.. They found out about the different animals that live there and did a scavenger hunt finding natural items. They finished by creating a magic wizard spell and by playing games in the woods.
In September Year 2 were looking at different habitats. They visited the Hirst Wood Nature Reserve and explored different habitats to see what life they could find. They looked in the pond, the soil, under logs and stones, in the leaf litter, in the trees and bushes and in log piles. They then recorded everything they observed.
In November the Reception children invited their parents and carers into school for the day. Together they made bird feeders to take home and put out for the birds. They mixed lard and vegetarian suet with sunflower seeds and put them into yogurt pots with string to hang them up. They learnt about how birds are short of food in the winter and what they like to eat.
In December Year 4 invited their parents and carers to join them for an Egyptian Mythical Creatures evening at the Hirst Wood Nature Reserve. They followed a trail that displayed their Egyptian models that they had designed and created with Artist Sharon Snaylum. By working out the hieroglyphic clues they could find the hidden word and claim a prize. We worked together with the Hirst Wood Regeneration Group to decorate the reserve which looked stunning lit up by candles and lamps in the dark.
Year 1 were learning about the world and its 7 continents. They took on the role of explorers and in groups discovered and named the 7 continents laid out around the Hirst Wood Nature Reserve. They answered questions about each of the continents and discovered secret letters to solve a hidden message. Finally they went out to discover some new artefacts and items to bring back from their travels.
Year 5 were learning about Milner Field House. To revise all the information they had learnt they completed a backwards bingo activity around the school grounds. In pairs they matched their answers to hidden questions about Milner Fields history and the people that used to live there.
In March Year 6 were learning about Refugees. They designed and built their own refugee shelters using limited equipment and the natural resources around them.
Year 2 used the outdoor school playground to measure different objects in centimetres and metres and to work out maths measuring problems.
In May Year 3 visited the Hirst Wood Nature Reserve to look closely at the plants and flowers there. They were learning about the different parts of plants and their functions. They matched colours in nature and sketched plants labeling each part and describing what it does. They also did some amazing leaf and bark rubbings too.
In May Reception invited their Parents and Carers into school to build dens in the school playground. They worked together and made some very creative dens. They read stories and played games inside them.
Following their residential trip to York studying the Romans, Year 4 were challenged to work in teams to build and test out their own Ballisters. Once built they tested out their designs in a competition to see how far they could fire the corks. Because it was a very hot day they also had a go at firing some water bombs too !
As part of their Roman topic Year 4 became engineers and constructed roman aqueducts. They used large wooden bricks to design and build the bridges with arches. Then they experimented with transporting water using guttering pipes from a high mountain lake down to a roman city in the valley below.