Tag Archives: outdoor learning

Rain or Shine!

Getting outdoors to learn through play is an important part of life in the Rochsolloch Nursery class! Our children are outdoors in all weathers! In this pair of snaps, you can see  that our children have taken their focus on ‘Sharing’ outdoors to look for ways to work together during water play.

It looks like great fun, boys and girls!

Watervole Wetland Development

P7 have enjoyed visiting Brownsburn Local Nature Reserve as part of their Outdoor Learning this year. Yesterday, the class were joined by park ranger Kirsty Mooney, to make an important trip to the park.

Did you know that there are European Water Vole living just behind our school? Our responsible citizens have been playing their part in developing the environment to ensure the survival of this endangered species. The pupils achieved this through planting particular types of plant around the wetland area – these plants will help encourage the water voles to the area. They must be delicious!

As you can see from our gallery, it was tough work!

P7 Outdoor Learning

As part of their topic on Scotland, P7 will be getting out into the great Scottish outdoors over the coming weeks, enjoying the Scottish weather and taking in the scenery.

This afternoon, the class worked in groups to create sun shelters using a limited selection of materials. Mr Innes was extremely impressed with the way the pupils collaborated and assigned roles to one another. Later in the term, the class will be building on this knowledge when they create ‘wild shelters’ in Brownsburn Local Nature Reserve – our favourite destination for outdoor learning!

Over the next four Tuesdays, our children will also be hiking, recording signs of animal life, and identifying and classifying insects and mini-beasts.

Mud Kitchen: The Official Grand Opening!

Last week, we held our long-awaited ‘Grand Opening’ of the Nursery Mud Kitchen.  Therese Henry from North Lanarkshire Council and Mrs McLean, our Head Teacher had the honour of declaring the Mud Kitchen (Officially!) open for business!

Following the opening, there was a tea party with the children, including celebratory dancing!  Our helpers were also sent home with mud mask favours as a token of our gratitude.

We would like to once again offer our sincere thanks to all adult helpers and staff who helped make this dream a reality!

Let the Learning Begin!

Check out the gallery below showing our children enjoying their first learning adventure in our brand new Mud Kitchen! We are so excited to see the positive impact our Mud Kitchen will have on the learning of our boys and girls. As you can see, learning certainly is fun (if a little messy) in our Nursery!

Operation Mud Kitchen Complete!

After a great deal of hard work, we are delighted to announce that our Nursery mud kitchen is now complete!

The children can stop peering out of those windows now and can actually get out and explore…the messier the better!

We would like to offer our sincere thanks to everybody who has helped make this dream project a reality.  It was a magnificent team effort and we could not be any happier with the results!

Making Progress with the Mud Kitchen!

It has been a very productive few days over at the Nursery!  The sun has been kind to our parent helpers and nursery staff who have been working tirelessly on our brand new mud kitchen!

Excellent progress is being made but there are lots of jobs still to do!  Thankfully, we have a wonderful team, who are toiling away with smiles on their faces!

Our boys and girls can’t help but keep peering out of the windows to see just what’s going on!  With the kitchen itself arriving tomorrow, the excitement won’t let up any time soon.  Let’s hope the sun doesn’t let up either!

Infant Outdoor Learning

At Rochsolloch Primary School, we pride ourselves on using Outdoor Learning Experiences to encourage our pupils to develop a sense of connectedness with nature and to our local environment.

Our Nursery and P1 pupils were visited by ‘Zoo Lab’ as part of our Minibeasts transition topic, where they were able to learn about and handle a variety of creepy crawlies, including giant snails and snakes!

Our P1 classes also visited Brownsburn Local Nature Reserve, where they were taken on a guided nature walk by Jackie, our local Countryside Ranger.

Take a look at our zoo lab gallery!

Zoo Lab:

 

Mud Kitchen Mood Board

Over the next few days, our ‘Mud Kitchen Mood Board’ will be going up in the Nursery foyer.  We are really keen to create a Mud Kitchen for our children to use during outdoor play but parents, grannys, grandads, we need your help! 025Do you remember how much fun it is playing in the dirt!? Do you have a few hours to spare? Can you help us source some of the equipment we need?

Read our latest Newsletter for full details or have a chat with a member of our Nursery team.

Wear Yellow Walk

As you can tell, June is a really busy month at Rochsolloch Primary School!  Today our P7 pupils were representing the school at the annual Wear Yellow Walk at Strathclyde Park.

The children collected sponsor money for St. Andrew’s Hospice ahead of taking part in the walk today.  St Andrew’s Hospice employees have visited our school regularly in recent years, where the children have learned about the cost involved in providing the fantastic care offered to residents of Airdrie and neighbouring areas.

The class had a wonderful time in the incredible weather, retuning to school this afternoon proud and exhausted in equal measure!

Fantastic job P7.

“Best Class Trip Ever!”

P3 visited Amazonia this morning to round of their Outdoor Learning ‘Into the Wild’ topic.

The class explored the rainforest and were taught about the important role minibeasts play in keeping other animals alive!  The children were then given the chance to hold a variety of creepy crawlies, and they proved to be much braver than any of the adults, who seemed much happier taking pictures! Finally, the children were taught an interactive lesson about the layers of the rainforest before taking a trip to the gift shop before heading home.

On leaving the bus, many of the children were overheard saying that it had been “the best class trip ever!”  That’s what we like to hear, P3!

Wonderful Wild Work

As part of their ‘Into the Wild’ topic, P3 were set a homework challenge.  The pupils were tasked with coming up with a personal project, based on an animal or sport.  The children were given the choice over creating a piece of artwork or model, a PowerPoint presentation, a poster or a written booklet.

Mr Innes really couldn’t believe the exceptional standard of homework that the children managed to produce.  Great job children, and thanks to all the parents for being so supportive!

Young Scientists

This term, Primary 3 have been combining their Outdoor P.E. with Science.  The children have been walking to the local park, where they have been looking out for signs of the changing season, clues for wildlife that might be living in the area, and for minibeasts or insects.

The children suggested that we looked for minibeasts in shaded areas, perhaps under rocks.  They found a host of interesting minibeasts, and the class were able to identify whether they were insects or not, by examining the tiny creatures closely and counting the number of legs and body segments.  When they got back to the classroom, Mr Innes used a Spotter’s Guide to help the class identify the large beetle in the bug viewer as a violet ground beetle (after the children had given their hands a good wash of course!).

A Fine Day for a Stroll

On Monday afternoon, P3 hiked to Brownsburn Local Nature Reserve as part of their ‘Into The Wild’ topic.  Although the children found that the park is not yet showing any signs of Spring, it was an absolutely glorious day to get some extra exercise, with the pupils pleased to take their weekly walking total well above the 2 mile mark.

The class are already looking forward to returning next week, when they will be looking closely to see if anything has changed as our weather slowly begins to warm up and the plant life gets a few extra precious hours of sunlight.