Category Archives: Woods

Minibeast mansions, Woods

Week 12- Minibeast Mansions Callum

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Mini beast mansion

On Friday the 20th of January the whole school went to the woods. About a quarter of the school cycled that includes me. I had to stop because I ripped Blair’s bag on my tyre. Mrs McKinnon and I had to cycle about twenty metres fast to catch up with the rest. Luckily they stopped for us to catch up with them. We went to make a mini beast mansion.

        When we got to the woods we got into groups of five. I was in a group with Cara, Rhianne, Ross and Stewart. After we were in our groups, we had to pick a part of the woods to make our mini beast mansion. I was in a claustrophobic space.

        We didn’t have any materials to make the mansion just things that were on the forest floor. We were making the mansion of bricks. But then it was just bricks. So we had to demolish it. Then we started to think about the rain and what was the best place to go if it was raining. After all that arguing we found a shelter then started to build our mansion with sticks and pine needles. Five minute afterwards it was time up. So we had to walk to Williams’s house to get our bikes. When we arrived back at school when we were in our classrooms for Ten seconds the bell rang to go home.  

By Callum.

Trees, Woods

Recount to Skinflats Woods Day 1

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On Thursday 25th of August I went to Skinflats Woods with my school. We went there to discover about the wildlife.

The first thing we did was establish some rules. When Mrs. Lennie blew the whistle, we had to go back to base. If she blew the whistle three times that meant we had to go back to base. If she blew the whistle one time that meant inhalers were needed
We sat down and started to talk about what makes a tree. A tree is something that has a single, tall trunk. Branches don’t begin until thirty cm high. A trees girth is at least thirty cm when it has grown up.
There are different trees in our wood. There are deciduous trees and coniferous. A deciduous tree is a tree that has flat, green leaves that fall off in Autumn. A coniferous tree is a needly tree with cones. We mostly have coniferous trees in our wood. Mrs. Lennie gave us leaf ID envelopes. We got asked to go and find different kind of leaves.
In Winter the trees are bare. In Spring, trees blossom and buds come out. In Summer trees are covered in leaves. In Autumn leaves change colour and fall off. It took us twenty five minutes to get back to school because we were tired. The part I enjoyed most was when me and James found a big tree had fallen down and it was really big and the roots were very big.

Minibeast mansions, Woods

Recount of Woods Day 12- James

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Last Friday we went to the woods on our bikes. We went there because we were going to make minibeast mansions.

When we got there we sat down in our outdoor classroom. Mrs Lennie told us what we were to do. We had to make minibeast mansions. We split up in to our groups and went to find bit of land to start building.

It was not long until we were building. We did not have a boss. We were just a good working team. Our minibeast mansions are just about finished and we found it enjoyable. Then we headed back to school.

Photosynthesis, Trees, Woods

Recount of Visit to Skinflats Woods Day 2- Bruce

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Bothkennar Primary School went to Skinflats Woods with the little ones. We took a longer route meanwhile checking the cycle path at the same time. We were going to the chestnut tree because the class novel had a conkers competition in it. We were going to the woods to learn why trees are important. The day was Thursday the first.
When we got to Skinflats Woods, Mrs Lennie gave us a passage called “What do Plants Need?” and Mrs Lennie said “scatter” so we found a place to sit. We were learning about photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis is how trees make their own food. It needs sunlight, CO2 (carbon dioxide) and water. The leaves collect the sunlight and carbon dioxide furthermore the roots collect the water. The tree mixes all of it together and it makes energy for the tree. There is this chemical that makes the leaves green and it is called chlorophyll.
We need trees to survive and the tree’s waste is oxygen and we breathe out carbon dioxide and the trees need that for energy.

The trees in the woods had A, B or C. Mrs. Lennie asked us a question and we had to run to A,B or C after the quiz question.
The little ones went first.  We left after ten minutes and we got to a swing and it was very fun. After five minutes we caught up with the little ones. When we were about five minutes away from school three cars came down the cycle path. When we were just outside we made it in eight minutes past three and we made it in time!.

Photosynthesis, Trees, Woods

Recount of Visit to Skinflats Woods Day Two- Skye

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Recount of Visit to Skinflat Woods: Day Two

One the first of September ,the whole school and the two little ones went to the woods again to learn more about the woods but this time we went to learn ,what trees give us. We took longer route than last time because in our novel it talked about conkers, so we went the longer route, so we went to the chestnut tree: When we got there, some people were playing on the swing but some people were looking for conkers but it is not time of year for that. The last time we went a narrow way last time and that was a little hard for some people.

When we got there we all took our jackets off and sat on the log and we were waiting to find out what we had to do next. Mrs.Lennie told us to get into groups and go somewhere to sit. My team was called “The Beetles”. We had to read though a sheet called “What do plants eat?”We were learning about the process of photosynthesis. The tree needs three things, sunlight from the leaves, water from the roots and carbon dioxide. The tree needs carbon dioxide but the tree breathes something else in to, the tree breathes out oxygen but we need oxygen to breathe and we breathe out carbon dioxide. “What makes the leaves green”? Chlorophyll is a green chemical. The leave does something else too; the leaves make sugar from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide .The sugar makes the tree have energy.

When the trees breathe in the carbon dioxide they make oxygen but the trees don’t like it so they out the oxygen. But when we breathe in the oxygen we breathe a little bit of carbon dioxide gets in. So when we breathe out the carbon dioxide goes in to the tree .The tree gives us oxygen and we give them carbon dioxide. When we got back to the base, Mrs. Lennie told us some questions but we didn’t have to shout the answer out, the A B C was on the trees and we had to run to them. I got all them right. The little class went away first then a little while later we started to go but the little class were really slow and we caught up with them. It took us 30 minutes to get back but at least it was faster getting back when we were going up there.

Minibeast mansions, Trees, Woods

Recount of Visit to Skinflats Woods Day 12 William

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Last Friday we went to our woods we had to build minibeast mansions. Some people walked and some people cycled, I cycled. We built minibeast mansion to help the insects from dying so quickly. We split up into groups. In my group, I had Blair, Dean, Skye, James and me. We went searching and I found a tree that had fallen down and I thought it was a Scots Pine tree. It had needles and so I thought it would be sheltered so our minibeast mansion didn’t fall down.

We all went searching for twigs, bricks and soft bark. Skye was our captain she told Blair and Dean to get shelter. She asked James to collect bricks and I had to get damp wood. Luckily When Mrs. Lennie came to look at our minibeast mansion she found an old pipe. Ske put the pipe in to good use. Ours kind of looked like a minibeast playhouse. I thought our group got on well.

On the way home we left the same time as the walkers and they beat us to the school. I liked this week very much!

Photosynthesis, Trees, Woods

Recount of Visit to Skinflats Woods Day 2

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Yesterday the whole school went to Skinflats Woods and this time the primary 1s came. We went to the woods to learn about why trees are so important. We went a different route because we wanted to see the chestnut tree. We are thinking of taking our bikes down this path soon.

When we arrived we got into groups. We had to go to a den to read our story called “What do plants need?” We had to learn the process of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is how a plant makes its own food. How you make photosynthesis is with sunlight, water and carbon dioxide. The chlorophyll is a green chemical that gives the tree’s leaves colours.
We have a good relationship with the trees because we give trees carbon dioxide and they give us oxygen.
When we came back to base Mrs. Lennie gave us a quiz. We had to go to A, B or C signs on the trees.  She gave us possible answers. I got five right and one wrong in the quiz. The wee ones left fifteen minutes before us and we caught up with them and we got back to school in time so there couldn’t be any grumpy parents!

Seed Dispersal, Trees, Woods

RECOUNT OF VISIT SKINFLATS WOOD DAY 4

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Last Friday the whole school went to Skinflats Woods. We were learning about the plants. We learned how plants reproduce. We stopped at the horse chestnut tree and still there were no conkers. We went to sit under the horse chestnut tree.
Mrs. Lennie sat down and read a book about sycamore trees and some other trees too. We learned different trees/plants have differently- shaped seeds. The seeds can be spread in different ways.
We went searching for different seeds. We found just one helicopter from the sycamore tree.
We got some conkers from the horse chestnut tree. At the weekend, Lauren found some parachutes from the park and yesterday I found a conker that hadn’t been opened.
The seeds from blackberries, rosehips and blaeberries can be pooed out by birds. When we were looking in a rose hip we saw two maggots inside it. The Scots pines will drop their pine cones on the ground. Their seeds are inside the cones. When I was in the woods we used a leaf I.D. guide to identity the pine tree –it was a Scots Pine. We hunted for seeds in fallen pine cones and we found a leaf skeleton but we left it to rot.

By Katie

Mining, Trees, Woods

Visit to Skinflats Woods Week 6

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Last Friday we invited Mrs. Sweeney our Falkirk Ranger to help us with ideas for improving the biodiversity in our woods to get level two in our John Muir Award.
When we stopped at the horse chestnut tree we found a few conkers but behind the sycamore tree we found a path and it took us to some goose grass. It got its name because geese come and eat it at winter. There were old house parts like washing poles, fences and old lights. I think there must have been a house there long ago. Mrs. Sweeney said she went on a survival course. She had to make string from nettles.
On the way to the woods Mrs Sweeney stopped at some plants and she told us about them. One of them was a hawthorn bush. Indians thought it smelled of death. From the hawthorn bushes you could make jerky and wine. The hogweed is native to our country but the giant hogweed belongs to Asia. The rosebay willow herb is also called “poor man’s asparagus”. The last one we saw was mugwort and on it we found some banded brown- lipped snails.
When we got to the woods Mrs. Sweeney said she had a little mammal in her box. We had all sorts of crazy ideas for what it could be. It was a bat. She said it was a pipistrelle bat. Bats are nocturnal. A pipistrelle bat weighs the same as a pound coin. Bats are the only mammal that can fly. Bats eat up to 3000 insects a day. They help to pollinate plants. Bats use echolocation to hunt. This is when the bat makes high- pitched sounds and they come back to them if something is in its way. We are hoping to improve the biodiversity in the wood by building bat boxes.
We had a short time before we had to go back so we went to a pond where a mine shaft used to be. It got flooded because the River Forth tide came in and it breached the mine walls.
We looked at a map made in 1898 that was 112 years ago. We saw on the map there used to be cottage in our woods so next week we are going to see if we can find any remains.