Author: Mrs Mackey

Session 4: Nurtured

In our fourth outdoor learning and play session, we focused on the wellbeing indicator ‘nurtured’.

We learned that the meaning of the word nurtured is when we care for and look after someone or something.  We brainstormed how we can be nurturing to each other and in our garden, and shared some excellent comments.

Next we checked on the fat ball bird feeders we made on Tuesday and saw that they were hard. In response to Ryan and Rhyann’s comment above, fat balls were randomly selected, and we took these out to our garden where the children who made them chose branches to hang them on. Ryan said he thought these should be “…high up branches so the birds don’t get scared”, so Mrs Mackey helped to put them on. We cant wait to see if the birds eat these (we shall try to get some pictures of them if they do!).

Next we turned our attention to our garden. Again, there were many Autumn leaves to sweep up with our big brush, and we safely used our loppers and a saw (supervised by Mrs Mackey) to cut down more branches for our den. Next week P3 will continue with this activity, and Mrs MacDonald has kindly donated a tarpaulin sheet and ropes which will help to weatherproof our den!  We can’t wait to see the results!

Session 3: Active

Our focus this session from the SHANARRI Wellbeing wheel is ‘Active’.

We brainstormed ways in which we can enjoy being active outdoors.

Grace suggested we could be active by making food for wildlife and Chloe said we could feed the birds. We discussed that the the season will be changing from Autumn to Winter soon, and it can be difficult for birds and animals to find food to eat. We agreed that making food for wildlife is therefore an excellent way to help them over this time, and will attract more to our garden. For this reason we made fat ball bird feeders.

In pairs, we mixed melted lard, bird seed and oats together. Mason did not like the smell of the lard, however it did give us nice soft hands!

We reflected on the 3D shapes we have been learning about in class and chose a sphere shape for our fat balls. We shaped this mixture with our hands. The balls were completed by a loop of string, to enable us to hang them from the trees in our garden over the Winter.

We have left them on the window sill to set, and we shall begin hanging these on the branches from Thursday, throughout the Autumn and Winter. Many thanks to Sophie who was able to instruct and help her class friends make the fat balls today!

Session 2: Healthy

During our second session of outdoor learning and play, our focus was ‘Healthy’, from the GIRFEC SHANARRI Wellbeing wheel.

We brainstormed the word healthy, and discovered it didn’t just mean how we ate, exercised and washed our hands, it also related to how we felt.

We then discussed how we felt outdoors.

We also brainstormed how our senses can help us to enjoy outdoor learning and play.

We practiced mindfulness outdoors and children used their senses to describe what they liked to touch, smell, hear, and see!

“I like the feeling of the tree, it feels rough”, said Tom.

“I like the feeling of the smooth leaf”, said Olivia.

“I like the smell of the water mint”, said Grace.

“I like to look at the pond”, said Chloe.

“I can hear the birds and the pond feels cold”, said Ryan.

We can practice mindfulness at home too by clicking on the following link:

In response to ideas suggested in Session 1, children used great teamwork and collaboration skills to tidy the garden leaves, by sweeping, shovelling them up and putting them in a bin bag. Tom said he felt like Santa, because the black bag was so full! Niharika suggested that we use some of these leaves to make compost to help us grow plants (which we did!). We also planted water mint in the pond, to attract more wildlife (thank you Mr Miller for donating!). We reflected on what plants need to grow (water, light and soil), and decided we needed to cut some of the branches down in our Magic garden as it was too dark. Children were supported to safely use garden loppers to do this, and we discussed that they should only use garden tools with an adult, to prevent accidents. The children all agreed we should use these branches for a den!