Category: Outdoor Learning

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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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Our Award Winning Garden!

Last week judges from West Lothian Council visited our school to judge our school garden for the Primary School Gardening Competition.

We are delighted to announce that we received TWO awards!

  • Decorative Garden
  • Container Garden

This is a huge achievement for our school,  and a tribute to the work of Sarah-Jane and our gardening club, a big thank you to them. Well done!

 

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Our School Garden

Over the last few months we have been working hard in our school garden. After school garden club, Club Wild and the P1s and P2s have all been busy using their green fingers to prepare the beds, plant seeds and make signs ready for the growing season. This year we are going crazy for colour to brighten up our playground.
In the vegetable patch we have been looking at the different plant families, roots, tubers, fruits, leafy, bulbs, stems, flowering and pulses. Gardeners use these families to group plants with the parts that we eat. Our potatoes, broad beans, onions and peas are already looking great. The broad beans have a beautiful dark pink flower which is attracting lots of bees and if you watch quietly you might see the sparrows feeding babies nesting in the bird box.
Around the playground colours are popping up everywhere. At after school garden club we have been thinking about different colours and what things we see in nature are that colour. We started with red and planted poppies, strawberries and nasturtium and we painted coconut ladybirds to decorate the fence. Mrs Brady gave us some red sunflowers. I wonder how tall they will grow. We went on to think about and plant blue, green, pink, purple, orange and yellow zones in the playground.
This year we have also been using the herbs that we have growing in the garden and school grounds. The P2s learned about the healing properties of plants such as lavender, willow bark, eucalyptus, feverfew, and sage amongst others. The children made their own medicine for Molly, the class doll who was unwell.
We have also been working on our wild flower patch that we planted a few years ago. Club Wild had great fun making seed bombs and throwing them, along with making butterfly feeders.
Our rich and colourful garden is wonderful for the children and all our visiting wildlife. Please help us to look after this valuable and well loved resource.
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P4-7 Visit the New Pump Track

In order to support health and safety and assessing risk at the new Pump Track beside our school we have taken P4-7 over for a visit. Although the Pump Track is not part of our school we know it is very tempting for our children on their way to and from school, so we wanted to support them with making decisions about the track.

First of all we discussed tips Miss Burton had previously shared with us:

  • ALWAYS wear a helmet, and elbow and knee pads.
  • Ask permission from your parents/ carers.
  • Only use your own bike/ scooter.
  • Read the safety signs.
  • Don’t use the track before school, unless agreed with your parent/ carer.
  • Don’t walk on the track if people are cycling.

We read the safety signs at the track.

We risk assessed the track, to discuss which parts we thought might be tricky.

Then we walked, fast walked or jogged around the track. This helped to give us a feel for what the track is like. Some of us even thought it would be good to do our daily mile on the track.

Some of our children who are very confident at using the track, volunteered to take part in a photo shot to promote the track by West Lothian Council. You will see that they are all wearing a helmet.

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Fraser Park Pump Track

You will be aware that the West Lothian Council Pump Track is now open. Although it is close to the school it is not part of our school property and is part of a public park.

At assembly on Friday I explained to the children that they should:

  • wear protective gear when using the track including a helmet
  • ask permission from their parent/ carer before using the track
  • be coming straight to school in the mornings as their parent/ carer will be expecting them to go to breakfast club/ supervised playground.

As a school we will:

  • use our junior leadership groups to make an advice video about how to safely use the track
  • continue to work with the community council into how we can use the track
  • look into partnerships with organisations who can support the school and community with developing the children’s pump track skills on how to use it safely.
  • give P4-7 the opportunity to walk around the pump track in their trainers so they can get a feel for what it is like
  • go over the safety sign with P4-7 children.

Some tips on using the track are:

  • Follow the safety rules on the sign that is positioned beside the track
  • Encourage your children to walk or run around the track in their trainers before they take their scooter or bike anywhere near it. This is something that expert mountain-bikers do when they try out a new route, so they know what features are there, how it feels to be on the track, where any riskier or more challenging elements are and to make sure they are prepared for it.
  • Children should also be very comfortable and confident with how to control their speed on their wheeled ‘vehicle’, beforethey try out the track. It is not a good idea to try out a new bike/scooter/skateboard/skates on the track. It is best to wait until they have been tried out elsewhere and then use the track.
  • If children really want to use the track but are not very confident, they can start at one of the low points on the track, rather than at the official starting area up high, and stay low on the track (i.e. do not go too high up on the corners). That way they can get a feel for the track without starting off at speed and they will not generate quite so much speed as they go round. It does mean that they will have to pedal, but as they get more confident, they can start higher up and pedal less.

This is an exciting opportunity for our community, however it is important to me that the safety of our children comes first.

Miss Burton

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