We are really excited to announce that we are launching a brand new, weekly news letter – what better news to start the holiday weekend!!

Landing in your inbox on a Wednesday, it will be filled with lessons, activities and resources for the week ahead to aid with planning for home and school lessons, links to resources you might have missed, notes on any special upcoming events and some inspiring outdoor learning content.

The newsletter is suitable for all those who want to bring a bit of the outdoors into their teaching and their life.

If you are interested and would like to sign up, please do so by clicking on the link below:

Sign up for our brand-new newsletter here!

This year’s Outdoor Classroom Day is happening on this Thursday 21st May 2020.  Outdoor Classroom Day aims to inspire and celebrate outdoor learning and play both at home and at school.  Usually, this day is celebrated by teachers taking their classes outdoors for their lessons, however, this year, of course, due to the coronavirus crisis, things will look a little different, with the vast majority of teaching and learning taking place online and at home.

The organisation promoting Outdoor Classroom Day have decided this year to launch the movement – ‘Playful Nature’ – after collaborating with parents and teachers across the globe.

Their aim is to support children to continue to connect to nature, even during a period of lockdown and staying at home.  They believe that this connection is best made through play and have shared a variety of activities on their website which encourage a connection with nature both indoors and outdoors.  On 21st May – Outdoor Classroom Day – they are encouraging everyone to bring playful nature to their setting, family and home.

These ideas and activities can be found here: https://outdoorclassroomday.com/

We would love to see how you, your families and classes can engage with this very different Outdoor Classroom Day.  Of course, you can use any of the activities on our web site to engage with nature, or, check back here tomorrow morning for a very special activity which will allow you to investigate and connect with nature in your garden…or even on your windowsill!!

We are delighted to partner with the Ayrshire Branch of The Outdoor Partnership.  Our team has been joined by Vincent McWhirter who takes on the role of Outdoor Activities Development Officer in East Ayrshire.  He will be based within our office at St Joseph’s Campus in East Ayrshire.  TOP Ayrshire will work with clubs, schools and specialists to increase opportunities for people in Ayrshire to achieve their potential through outdoor activities, active participation, volunteering, training and education.

TOP Ayrshire can be found on Twitter: @top_ayrshire and on Facebook.

You can also find out more about Vincent by visiting our Who We Are page.

To mark International Family Day, we would like to celebrate the work of one of our partners, the John Muir Trust.  We are lucky to work very closely with the Trust here in East Ayrshire and our colleague Lorna has shared this wonderful case study of a local family completing their award during the time of lockdown.

We have shared the study here: International Family Day Case Study

We are all very impressed by the work that Oscar and his family have done to engage with the outdoors and nature during this really difficult time and it’s so lovely to see them share the benefits that they have felt and the changes they have seen.

If you have been inspired by this, or you would like to find out more for yourself or your pupils, then please visit our John Muir webpages for more information.

John Muir Award for Families

Or, you could get in touch with Lorna Sloan for more information at: eastayrshire@johnmuiraward.org

As part of our aim to support schools and teachers at this time, we would like to share some of the literacy lessons and resources that we have been uploading.

We have lessons suitable for children learning at home which can be found here: Literacy at Home Outdoors and Literacy at Home Indoors. The activities here cover the three strands of the literacy curriculum and the three levels of the Curriculum for Excellence.

Some example activities for learning at home include:

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt

Create Your Own Story

For those working within our local authority hubs, we have Literacy lessons across Early Level, First Level and Second Level available to be used.

We have also been hard at work to make sure that our Literacy Out of the Box resources are available for use online by all and can be found here.  These resources cover a wide range of books suitable for all levels and abilities, with activities able to be carried out in schools and at home.

We also have some literacy activities available for learners with Additional Support Needs, which can be found here.

Please feel free to browse, use and share these resources and as always, if you need any more support or have ideas of what you would like to see then please get in touch.

Happy National Numeracy Day!  To celebrate, we would like to share a variety of numeracy and maths lessons which have been uploaded to our pages to be carried out at home or within the local authority hubs.  There are currently activities, covering the different strands for pupils learning at early, first and second levels.

These activities can be found by following the links below:

Numeracy and Maths at Home Indoors

Numeracy and Maths at Home Outdoors

And for those working within schools:

Early Level Numeracy and Maths

First Level Numeracy and Maths

Second Level Numeracy and Maths

We hope that you find something useful, but as always if there is something you would like to see, or, if you need some advice, please do not hesitate to get in touch.

We have been so impressed by all of the wonderful and innovative home learning ideas that we have seen shared by our colleagues from across the authority on GLOW and on Twitter.  It has been lovely to see and even lovelier to see and hear that a lot of teachers are planning outdoor activities for their pupils and their families.

To help support this, we have been busy populating our website with activities for pupils and teachers working both at home and within the school hubs.  Each activity has clear curricular links and aims to put learning into a real life and meaningful context across the levels.

Over the coming days and weeks, we will be sharing a variety of the different resources that we have here,  across the curriculum and levels.

For starters, why not browse our learning at school pages?

Learning at School

This afternoon we would like to highlight a lovely resource from our friends at Loch Lomond and the Trossachs National Park.

They have shared a delicious and fun activity to learn about geology as part of their LochDown Learning program.

You can find more information here:

https://www.lochlomond-trossachs.org/park-authority/lochdown/lochdown-learning/lochdown-learning-chocolate-geology/

Or we have saved the link for you for easy access on our Science at Home Outdoors activities page.

This activity would fit in really nicely for P7 learners as part of their time at #LochDown Lodge – our alternative residential experience for these times.  Click the hyperlink above to find out more and to get access to a whole week of lock down appropriate residential activities.

As we enter a Bank Holiday weekend and the weather looking promising (or at least dry and sunny for a time), why not get camping in your back garden?

We have lots of resources here on our pages which could help you have your own ‘Back Garden Bank Holiday’ camping experience and can be shared with pupils to encourage them to take part too.  Have a look at the activities in the links below and have fun!

Build a Den

Cook an Omelette Outdoors!

Learn how to tie knots

Of course, this list is not exhaustive, so feel free to look through our pages to see if there is anything else that catches your eye!

We have been busy trying to make sure that we have resources that can be enjoyed by all available on our site.  We have activities and lessons that can be tried by learners working across early, first and second level in all curricular areas at home and at school.

We have also recently added lessons and activities for children with additional support needs.  These are curricular based lessons which are sensory and tactile to support engagement and exploration.

Have a look at our page by following the link below and see if there are any activities you would like to try out.

As always, please share with us if you have any questions, or ideas or suggestions of things you would like to see covered.

Additional Support Needs Resources