Dow’s Wood – Banton Biggies

Picnic Lunch

Some of the Biggies headed down to Dow’s Wood for a picnic lunch today. We had a relaxing time eating in the woods dappled with sunshine. Food was eaten, trees climbed. A woodpecker drummed around us in the treetops.

Outdoor Learning Day June 2023

We started the day by going to the woods to gather a bit of firewood and different things to test as tinder.

The woods have changed quite a lot since our last visit, the grass & bracken is a lot higher. Down by the Gladstone we saw a woodpecker and later on a frog.

Back in school we tried different items as tinder with our flies and steels. not much success. The only thing that really caught was some bog cotton we had picked on our previous visit.

Next we mixed up some dough to cook over the fire later on in the day.

We then explored a new App Seek by iNaturalist , which helped us identify plants and animals in the school grounds.

In the afternoon we rolled out out dough and wound it round some twigs, while the dough was rising we set up the fire pit.

Some marshmallows might have been toasted too.

Outdoor Learning Day with the Biggies

Today the whole school had an outdoor learning day. The Biggies:

Went to Dow’s Wood, we collected a hoard of words to use later, had a treasure hunt and collected some kindling.

Next we prepared the fire pit, reminding ourselves about the safety rules and chopped some kindling with great care.

After that we read some of the playground poems we wrote last week to the rest of the class.

In the afternoon we made a fire and cooked some marshmallows.

Finally we went to help primary 1 & 2 to tour the village and take photos of some of the important places in Banton.

No photos of the fire pit or the preparation:(

Dow’s Wood – September

This morning the biggies went for a walk in Dow’s Wood, they took part in a photo challenge, kept their eyes peeled for animals and plants and played some big.

An Artist at Rest

Conkers in the making

Thistle seeds

Hawthorn

A tiny frog explores a jumper

Looking for colours

Toadstool

There…

Two Roe

Today we went to the woods, we walked around the woods for a while taking pictures, stopping to look at wildlife, and wild plants. We eventually made our way to the Gladstone. Whilst at the Gladstone we sat down somewhere in the area, making sure to not go too far, and drew something like a small plant, a tree, or something similar.

Later we made our way to the school wood and played two team tag, after two rounds of it we made our way back to school.
Charlie

Today we went to Dows Woods, in Dows woods there was a cute tiny frog on Josh’s jumper (on a rucksack as well) and Hollie picked it up and put it in the trees.

When we were walking through the grass I found some hazelnuts that a mouse had eaten some a squirrel had eaten and some nothing had ate (and we also found conkers on a huge conker tree).

We sat on rocks and had to draw what we saw I drew some grass but there was a huge mushroom with a giant slug on it, Bobbi and I turned around for a few minutes and when we turned back it was gone.
Olivia Rose

There was a slug on a mushroom eating it. The slug was huge and then it disappeared.
I liked how we went and drew pictures of trees, leaves and other cool stuff I drew a tree that had no leaves on it.
At the start we got given a piece of paper so we could find\do things like make a rainbow, find a shadow and other things.
Mr Johnston found a shield bug it was green and had a little bit of yellow on its back he wasn’t scared of it.
-Bobbi

Hazel told Josh there was a spider on his head and he was rubbing his head saying get it off me. Hazel kept saying there’s a spider on your head and me standing laughing.
Standing there laughing,
We saw lots of bugs,
We drew stuff we could find,
We played a game it was fun ,
We saw two deer and a frog,
We had a long walk,
We saw mushrooms.
Amy

There is a bug out there that looks like a mosquito we called Tostito and we found a huge mushroom.
There is glass everywhere which is sad because we should be helping the environment.
There is a tiny green frog and a huge black beetle and they where really cool.
Hazel

At the woods we did challenges it was a photo challenge we are going to judge them soon the challenges were a rainbow, something moving (not a human), a shadow, something that makes you happy, a repeating pattern and a beautiful view it was hard because we went into different groups of three and four we couldn’t decide so we took tons of different pictures and we are going to pick them and Maybe win!
Hollie

Today we went to the woods and we did tones of stuff, all of it was very fun we played games and we drawn stuff, I drew a tree and everyone drew something cool, for the game we lay a game where you need to hide and then you need run, avoid the seekers and you need to sit on a log to get two points and if you just hide for the time limit you get one point.
Josh

Today at the woods we saw a frog and a huge ground beetle, we did a photographic challenge we drawn nature and we saw a rabbit hole. We played 2 team tag it was really fun even know my team lost. We saw a deer it was really fun and I can’t wait to go again
Rory

We found a beach tree and something came down it was a beach mast and it had seeds inside of it. There was spikes and it was green and when you opened it it looked like a flower.
Mia

We walked around the woods and we had a chart we had to find living things.
I enjoyed playing two team tig and seeing all the wildlife. We saw beetles, spiders, a wee frog, a shield bug and a pair of deer.
Daniel

I enjoined going through the long ferns and seeing how tall they were.
I enjoyed finding a spider and watching it walk on my hand.
I enjoyed drawing a plant.
Alex

Today I was in the woods with my class. I seen a beetle about 4.5cm big. It was black with a purple outline around it. We found the beetle Walking around on a rock. It was one of the coolest things I saw went we were walking in the woods.
Elise

I liked going to the Gladstone, the rocks surrounded by the oak trees and the old railway track.
I liked seeing the sheep and the deer.
I liked doing the game in the school woods where we have 2 teams and 1 team hides and when the team hides the 2nd team try’s to find them whilst the 1st team needs to get to the seat.
Harry

Dow’s Wood Photo Walk

We took a walk down through the woods this morning. We went to take some photos for the Kilsyth Rotary photo competition and get some inspiration for Art and Writing.

The photo comp is title Colours of Nature, although it was still a bit early in spring to get a lot of colour in the wood we managed to take a lot of photos.

We also found some burnt gorse and grass and a fair bit of broken glass. This will give us something to think about.

We ended up playing a game or two in School Wood and Josh spotted a roe deer!

We will post some of the photos for the competition once the class have made their selection.

Primary Six Poets go Down to the Woods

On Thursday the primary sixes for both p6-7 & p4-5-6 went down to the woods.

We were going to do a little Earth Day prep, but also to play games and read and write poems.

It was quite cold to be sitting long so we warmed up with running around game. All the children really all concentrated on writing and drawing in their tiny notebooks.

Outdoor learning Day, pt 1: Dow’s Wood

The Biggies went down to the woods this morning.

It is beginning to get a little more spring like, we noticed daffodils, hawthorn leaves and hazel catkins and buds.

We saw a buzzard hunting and heard and then saw a Woodpecker high in a tree.

We collected some nouns, verbs and adjective for later use and we also picked quite a lot of material for our bee hotel.

Biggies time at Dow’s woods

Today we went to Dow’s woods with the wee ones. We were all looking for signs of autumn. The biggies and the wee ones were partners. This is how our trip went …

Signs of autumn

When we were walking with our wee partners we were looking out for signs of autumn some of the sings we found were hazelnuts that had fallen of of a tree, brambles, rowan berries, and changing leaves some of these things we collected. Also the biggies were looking out for trip hazards and eye hazards while we were walking with our wee buddies.

When we arrived to our spot

When we arrived to out usual spot in the woods we looked for more signs after that our wee buddies had to leave. Once they left we decided to draw a tree we each picked a tree to draw. We have to remember which tree we drew because we are going to go back and draw it in different seasons. When we were finished drawing we wrote some poems about our trees.

Games and chaos

When we finished drawing and writing we played some games the games we played were sardines. Which is where a couple of people hide and if you find a person you have to hide with them until eventually everyone is found. When I found someone they were lying down on the mud hiding so then I had to join them until their was three of us thankfully time was up. Then after that we ran all the way back to school.

I really enjoyed the wood especially getting to show the wee ones the wood since some of them have never seen it. I hope we do this again some time.

Highlights of the week 23 Apr 2021

We have had a really busy week the first week back. The class are really working hard in their maths and literacy.

The Robots project is going well.

We had a walk down to Dow’s wood on Wednesday and Among other thing there were some amazing drawing done in a very short time:

Aaron combined his language & ice skills in the outdoors:

The Primary Sevens had 2 challenges from Kilsyth Academy, we decided it would be a good idea for the sixes to join in. The first challenge involved designing a boat: