hello all, what a great day in the woods! We were joined by Coryla Jones, an NQT teacher from St Sylvester’s PS for the morning as she was interested on what goes on. Great to have her on board and really lucky she came along as the adult ratio was low that day and we needed all the adult support.
the day was devoted to maths and there was 4 main maths activities.
1. Sitting round the fire we consolidated on all the mental maths that we have been doing i.e. addition, subtraction, fractions and I digit/ 2 digit multiplication. Each pupils was given a stick and they had to write a mental problem on the stick and work out the answer and put it on the other end of the lollipop stick,. They then stuck it in the ground ,they then stood up and moved 4 round to a new position, in front of someone else’s stick. they then, in turns, read out the problem to a chosen person round the fire. A good mental warm up.
The next three activities were in rotation as the class was split into 3 groups.
2. How many prickles have holly leaves. An activity of collecting data i.e. holly leaves , and counting how many prickles an individual leaf has. ( this varies from 8 to 22!) The leaves were then displayed on a bar chart on the ground and pupils could interpret their findings . This was that the average amount of prickles is 15 – 17 prickles, but varies considerably!
3. Crate . 3 – D shapes using twigs , sticks and masking tape. The pupils had to construct a cuboid and Pyramid. We learned a lot from this activity i.e. use thin sticks , not branches! Think thin and small. The masking tape would not stick on large wet sticks.
4. Ms Jones delivered a great activity in which she got the pupils to think about non standard measuring lengths to be found in the forest ( e.g. , logs, sticks), compared with Standard units ( Metre, cm). A very good activity getting the pupils to think about their surroundings and the evolution of standard measuring units..
Personal Evaluation and reflection. A full on morning of much maths in the forest! Maybe it was too ambitious and there was a lot put in. maybe in future the 3 d activity would be better organised and may have cut the rotation down to even two activities. great to share ideas with Ms Jones and bounce around a few ideas. the bar chart worked very well and could have been developed further.

Today was another beautiful day and we have been blessed by the weather being sunny and fairly mild. Today was an extra catch up ,which was not planned, and we made the most of it and it turned out to be a very enjoyable and meaningful learning experience.
The class will be reciting’ One dark night’ by Richard Edwards at the Moray Music festival and in class we are looking at poems and poetry. We have been reading Edwards Lear’s ‘ The Quangle Wangle’s Hat’ and we discussed the poem in a forest setting i.e. crumpetty trees and heard a full reading. We all recited ‘One Dark Night’ and discussed how we are going to recite it i.e. specific parts, emphasis and rhythm. The forest school ended with a reading of Lear’s ‘ The Owl and the Pussycat’.
Interspersed within the poetry the two groups, the wolves and the bears, were asked to make up a ‘wide game’, with their own rules which they then had to tell the other pupils about. These games , ‘Forest maniacs ‘ and ‘ Running forest’ were delivered a couple of times and refined.
Personal reflection and Evaluation.
it was really good to have work to follow on from class work. The pupils were really involved with the poetry session in the classroom the previous day and it was delightful to carry it into the forest. Edward Lear’s poems lend themselves to the outdoors and it was truly moving to recite them in a sunlit, bird singing forest. The pupils were enthralled with the poems and the discussion around our choric verse recitation was extremely valuable and productive, all done sitting round a fire.
The communication skills developed between the pupils in their groups while forming their wide game was wonderful to see and listen to, but it was the ownership of the rules and the modification steps taken that really was great to see . personalisation and choice? lots of!

Today was a brilliantly sunny day and we were visited by Lynne, Amanda and Barney from the Moray based charity, Rural, Environmantal Action Project (R.E.A.P.). to deliver a ‘Little Rotters Composting and Growing Workshop’.
The workshop was delivered by Barney, Lynne & Amanda from Reaps Grow Elgin project and they helped P5C to discover the world of compost and to plant some winter hardy plants to give our school garden a head start for Spring!
We were asked to collect some ‘greens'(Teabags/fruit from the staff room or fruit snack from playtime) and ‘browns’ (cardboard, egg boxes, paper towels, shredded paper small pieces). we then looked at the existing compost heaps and found out that they were very dry and full of soil. it was decided to start again and the pupils were split up. Other groups included making wild plant bird Bombs, a mixture of soil, flour and plant seeds in which we will place in the forest next week for the birds to eat ( and disseminate!). A group planted onions, thyme and beans while bird feeders were made from pinecones and peanut butter. Finally, a litter pick was carried out, tidying up the garden and surrounding area.
Evaluation and self reflection.
It was great to have the opportunity to engage with the agency REAP and have them come into the school to work with the pupils. it is always rewarding to find a really valuable resource such as this which can help deliver issues such as sustainability and ‘global’ shopping.
It was an invaluable workshop as it brought around ownership of the garden/ compost bin/ specific beds to the pupils and gave myself confidence to become more involved in the school garden and to follow up what was started here today. I know for sure the pupils are up for it!