I found out, at the very last minute, that our volunteer was unable to come with us and there was no-one else available. So we stayed in the school grounds and..

looked for signs of spring

Made a stick picture of a creature which would be perfectly adapted to live in our school during building works- goggles, short etc. We also made a picture of a dinosaur and discussed why it became extinct ( it only eat ice-cream apparently!). We then looked for plant adaptations.

Made quadrants on the ground using 4 sticks ( approx. 30cm long) and counted how many different things we could see. This proved to be fascinating – we found newly germinated seeds and several different types of plants and lichen. One square had 12 different things in and we were able to wonder why some squares contained completely different things to others in different areas.

Made transient art pictures

Examined the lichen on the wall – there was more orange lichen on the road side and more moss on the shady side. Two walls were different.

Someone ran into school to fetch magnifying glasses and that made things even more interesting.

Searched for something interesting – discussion.

The children came up with all sorts of suggestion to answer my questions – it went surprisingly well!