Category: Club Wild

Our Outdoor club is made up of a small group of P5-P7 pupils who work with Sarah Jane Haston (parent helper) and Rachael Young (Pupil Support Worker) to develop skills, enthusiasm and resilience in working with nature and the environment.

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Club Wild – Remarkable Rosehip

This week at club wild we headed to the hedgerows to harvest the bright red hips of the wild dog rose (Rosa canina). The rosebush is so jaggy it nearly caught us. Liam says it needs to be this jaggy to protect itself from birds eating the rosehips.
Rosehip syrup became very popular during World War II when government scientists discovered that weight for weight they have 20 times more vitamin C than oranges. The Department of Food recommended rosehip syrup and a generation of children began to have a daily dose.
During World War II, a national week for the collection of rosehips was established in late September. In 1941 this produced a 200 ton haul of hips which made 600,000 bottles of commercially produced syrup.
The syrup was traditionally boiled but Hurriyiah pointed out that in boiling the vitamins might be lost. To keep all the Vitamin C, and also Vitamins A, D and E, we can make a raw syrup. Here is our recipe for Raw Rosehip Syrup.
• Rosehips topped and tailed, scored or pricked with a fork
•Caster sugar
•Sterilized jars
Make a layer of rosehips at the bottom of the jar then cover with a layer of caster sugar. Keep doing this until the jar is full.
Leave the jar for about two weeks on a sunny window, turning every day. The sugar will draw out the liquid from the hips and make beautiful red-orange colour of syrup.
After two weeks or longer if it needs, strain the liquid through a fine muslin cloth and pour into sterilized bottles. The rosehip syrup can be taken as medicine but tastes amazing on pancakes, waffles, yogurt and ice cream 😊
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Club Wild: Maths Week Scotland

This week at club wild we looked into maths in nature as part of Maths Week Scotland. We thought about how we see maths in our daily lives and explored mathematical patterns in nature.
First we looked at bilateral symmetry and thought of the  plants and animals that we could split into two matching halves. Leaves, beautiful butterflies and even us.
Passing round the inside of an old wasp’ s nest we could see an amazing hexagonal pattern the same as the honeycomb of bees. Mathematicians believe that bees and wasps use the hexagonal shape to utilise space. Other shapes like circles would leave a space.
Another amazing mathematical pattern we found in the heads of the sunflowers in the school garden. If you count the spirals you will always find a Fibonacci number where the number is equal to the two previous numbers (0, 1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55, and so on). We liked learning the mathematical words for things we see all the time.
Maths patterns are all around us from the branching of trees,  waves, cracking muds, spirals of pine cones and snail shells, petals and seed heads, the number of spots on ladybird and identical halves of butterflies. Next time when you are out and about have a look and see what patterns you can see.
Club Wild,  Mrs B & Sarah-Jane
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Club Wild – Trip to Almondell and Calderwood Country Park

We had a perfect day for our trip to the County Park. Blue sky and a warm breeze. Our taxi dropped us off in the north car park and we made our way down to the river with a mini scavenger hunt to complete.  One of the things on our list was 1 smooth pebble and 1 flat stone so we all had a go at skimming.

The rhodedendrums were in full flower and we were amazed by all the different colours.  Bright pink, purples, orange, red, peach and white.  The petals made carpets for us to walk on.

Lily smelt and picked some some wild garlic and remembered the wild garlic bread that we made at school.

Sight, smell and then noise.  The river was crashing over the stones at the waterfalls.  We couldn’t hear each other speak it was so loud.

We spotted frogs in the pond, dragonflies and damsel flies darting about and bees and butterflies flying from flower to flower. After a wee picnic of crisps and cake we found some amazing trees to climb. What a great afternoon!

Club Wild
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Club Wild- Seed Bombs Away!

Each year at Club Wild we plant flowers so that we can all enjoy the beautiful colours but also to give all our small winged friends a helping hand.  Flowers attract many kinds of insects, bees and hoverflies working hard and pollinating our crops,  butterflies, ladybirds and many others.

Flowers that are rich in nectar and pollen provide the most food and wildflowers are great as they usually have simple, single flowers which make it easy for the insects to get to the pollen and nectar.

One of the most fun ways of sowing wildflower seeds is making seed bombs.  Here is our Club Wild Seed Bomb Recipe…

• Wild flower seed mix
• Peat-free compost
• Water
• Powdered clay (from craft shops or garden
  centre’s, or use clay soil)
• Mixing bucket

In the bucket we mix together 1 cup of seeds together with 5 chips of compost and 2-3 cups of clay powder.

Slowing mix in the water until everything sticks together,  then will the mixture into firm balls.

Then the fun bit! Plant by throwing your see bombs at bare parts of soil.

We threw some into our wildflower patch in the school cat park and also found some huge patches of bare ground where all the building work has been taken place around around the school. We can’t wait to see beautiful the pinks, purples, blues, oranges and yellows of the wild flowers growing and all the happy insects enjoying them too.
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Club Wild – Take that nettles!

For all the times we have been stung by nettles we at club wild like to get our revenge and turn them into an amazingingly tasty soup.

Common nettle or stinging nettles are so abundant. You can find them along the edges of paths and hedges, in woodlands and disturbed ground. It’s green leaves with  deeply serrated edges and stems are covered in hollow hairs which can sting.

The nettles sting to protect the plant from predators eating and weakening the plant.  We know they do it for a purpose and we know that nettles are really good for butterflies and their caterpillars but still getting stung is really, really sore!

Here is our Club Wild Nettle Soup Recipe, which just about makes up for all the stings.

Ingredients
• 50g butter/1 tbsp olive oil
• half a carrier bag of nettle tops or large leaves
• 1 large onion chopped
• 2 large potatoes cut into cubes

• 1 litre chicken or vegetable stock

Wearing rubber gloves we picked and sorted through the nettles. Back at school we then washed them and drained in a colander.

Method
Melt the butter in a large saucepan, add the onion and cook gently for 5-7 minutes until softened. Add the stock and potato. Bring to a simmer and cook gently until the potato is soft, about 15 minutes. Add the nettles.

Remove from the heat. Using an electric hand-held stick blender, purée the soup and then season with salt and pepper.

It looks and tastes amazing, so green but also creamy and rich. Some of us were slightly worried that it would still sting but heating the leaves takes all the sting away.  Katie and Kai liked it so much they had two bowls 🥣😊

 

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Club Wild – Houses complete and ready for families!

Now that Spring is here we have noticed that the birds are busy, ready to build nests for this year’s families. For the last few weeks Club Wild have been working on our bird boxes to give the birds a helping hand.
We talked about why its important to put up bird nesting boxes with fewer suitable trees, shrubs and buildings and more human landscaped areas.
We had two different types of bird boxes, one with a small hole for the little birds like sparrows, blue tits and great tits and one with a large open hole for birds like robins. In the wild robins would build open nests. The robin nest boxes needed to be placed between 1-2m above the ground while the small birds nest boxes between 2-4m. We chose a small area of mixed trees and made sure that our nest boxes were well hidden and not accessible to predators. They also needed to be placed facing a northerly direction to provide shelter from the prevailing wind.
After putting up the bird boxes we gave them an extra help by making some nesting bundles. Here we used dried grass, feathers, moss, wool and some pet fur tied up in branches so the birds could help themselves to nesting materials.
We hope that some families will move in and lay eggs so that we can watch and learn about our nesting birds.

 

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Club Wild – Spring is in Air 

At club wild we have been thinking about the seasons and the warmer, lighter and greener days that spring and summer will bring. In January and February Mother Nature is already leaving us clues telling us that change is on the way.. Spring is coming!

We found the flowers of hazel, alder and birch trees, drooping down in bright yellows.  If you look closely you can also see the tiny pink female flowers next to the yellow catkins.

It is always nice to see clumps of snowdrops, the first flowers of the year.  Green shoots are emerging everywhere and plants like Blubells shoot up early so they can get maximum light before the trees get their leaves.

Some trees are already showing leaves as they burst from their buds.  We found bright purple Elder leaves and furry buds of Willow and Rowan.

Another way we can tell spring is on the way us by listening too and watching the birds. They will be very busy soon building their nests.

Join us for more Spring adventures soon at
Club Wild.
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Club Wild – It’s never too cold for Blood Orange Sorbet!

We like to make and taste things at Club Wild. Mostly we use what we can find growing seasonally in the school garden or round and about in the orchard and hedgerows, but what could we find that grows at this time in the season?

Sarah-Jane told us that at this time of year she always thinks of citrus fruits,  making marmalade and of blood oranges.  Blood oranges are only available for us to buy in our supermarkets for a very short period between late January and March so we decided to try using them to make a simple blood orange ice  sorbet.

First we cut the oranges in half, some of the colours were amazing. The red pigments that we could see are the same anthocyanins that  are found in red autumn leaves. We squeezed the juice from the oranges and saved all the pips to plant later. Sarah-Jane boiled some sugar and water and then added it to our juice.  We gave it a quick stir and then popped it in the freezer.  In the morning, mashed together, our beautiful pink sorbet was ready. Gillon thought it was delicious and Huriyah gave it a definite thumbs up.  Even though it was so cold outside, it’s never too cold for our sweet and refreshing blood orange sorbet 😊.
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