Releasing our butterflies into the wild

Watching our caterpillars grow, turn into chrysalis and then become butterflies was amazing. It was emotional releasing them into the woodland even though it was best for them.

Bees and butterflies need flowers that have nectar that they like to eat so we are planning to plant a garden in our school that is bee and butterfly friendly… Watch this space!

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Ethan, Elle and Amy made a stop motion animation about the butterfly metamorphosis.

 

Tesco Art Competition

Last month we entered the Tesco Art Competition to try to win an artist workshop and have our work exhibited at the National Gallery. The group theme we chose was ‘Tree’ so we were inspired by our woodlands to create a big, brilliant collage using dyes, oil pastels and pen. We drew ourselves and hid around the picture in our favourite places to play. We love our woodlands and want to show it off!

Fingers crossed we will win!

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Foraging Wild Leeks in Our Woodlands

We learned about why it is important to use seasonal and local produce this week in topic and loved learning about how we can find food in the wild. Using local and seasonal produce can reduce carbon emissions from food storage and transport from different countries and a lot of the time it is fresher and tastier to eat! This week we investigated food air miles and checked how far our food really travels before it is on our dinner plate.

Recently we found that we had few flowered leeks in our woodlands! At first we thought they were snowdrops, then wild garlic and finally we found out that they were ‘Few Flowered Leeks’. We knew they were okay to eat because we crushed it in our hands and smelt the garlicy/oniony smell. You need to be careful not to pick lily of the valley by mistake which is poisonous! We found mushrooms too but we learned foraging mushrooms is too risky if you are not an expert. You have to be careful foraging in the wild and make sure you do not eat anything deadly or poisonous. Ethan suggests using the internet to find our more information and not to try mushrooms unless you are Bear Grylls or similar.

You can’t get more seasonal or local than this!

We used our foraged wild leeks to make ‘Leeky Bread’. Here is the recipe.

First get a stick of salted butter and a big bunch of washed and dried wild leek leaves.

Then blend them together in a good food processor.

Get a french bread stick and cut slices halfway down (don’t cut all the way through the bread).

Then put a spoonful of the garlic butter in the slits you made in the bread,

Bake in the oven until brown.

ENJOY!

 

Sounds of the Woodlands Class Poem

Sometimes we feel calm and enjoy the quiet in our woodlands so we wrote a poem about it! We went to the woodlands and we all wrote a few lines for a list poem. We shared our ideas and chose our best line to go into our class poem.

 

The wind flying past my face and creeping around my hair,

The trees going side to side as the wind blows,

Fresh air turning into a garlicy smell and crawling up my nose,

The yellow and blue flags swaying and flapping quietly in the wind,

The leaves were silently unwrapping themselves,

They slowly came down from the trees when I walked next to them,

All the white crystal snow is melting as the bright yellow sun shines on it,

The trees dance beautifully from side to side as the branches twist and turn,

The silent logs sit on the ground never making a sound,

Not a sound, not a movement from all these quiet logs,

Silent dogs behind the sharp fence,

Little woodland animals noiselessly crawling around,

Not a sound from the branches dancing in the air calmly,

The silence of a bug waking across your page,

Trees pushing their way through the ground,

Paper is decomposing quietly and glass is just waiting to cut you when you fall on it,

The trees are walking up to me like the day has began,

The cool air brushing through your hair feels so nice,

shivers going up my spine and a tree is as still as a statue,

The leaves falling onto the soggy ground very gently,

Leaves sprouting on the trees as Spring is making it’s appearance.

By Primary 5S

Pond Dipping Fun

P5S have been pond dipping between the stream near our school and the Eliburn Park to find out how clean the water is. Straight away we noticed that the water was full of rubbish and pollution like trolleys, crisp packets, bottles, cans and a frisbee. We felt sad for the animals who live there and we thought about what all that litter meant for the environment. We could see lots of algae, oil on the top of the water and lots of foam we thought might be detergent.

We investigated how the waterways become polluted by water run off from housing estates and the streets in an experiment later in the week.

We went to different parts of the water and we used a kick test to get a sample. We kicked the water and scooped all of the cloudy water into our bucket. We tried to see what creatures were living at the bottom in the mud. We also scooped from the top, middle and bottom of the water to see what was living in the different parts of the water.

We took the samples back to class and we compared them to each other to see what was inside. We found freshwater shrimp, mosquito larvae, flatworm, pond skater, freshwater boatmen, leeches and minnow fish. We also saw swan mussels. From collecting all of the samples and using our special sheet that told us what we needed to see to show the water was healthy we could prove that the water was fairly clean.

Nature’s Calendar

Next term we are diving into our conservation topic. We have been exploring and observing the signs of spring in our woodlands and surrounding areas so we will be participating in the Woodland Trust Nature’s Survey to record things we see around us. Phenology is the study of the times of recurring natural events like the flowering of snowdrops, leaves appearing on trees and hearing certain birds. Through adding data to Nature’s Survey we will help scientists gather data on how climate change is affecting nature.

Although our woodlands are small we can help make a difference!

If you would like to get involved at home here is the link and you can see the Phenology guide PDF here!

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Measuring Trees

We measured the height and circumference of trees in our woodlands this week! We used our bodies to measure and we hugged the trees. We measured our arm span and any space between our hands to work out the circumference. To measure the height of the tree we got somebody to hold a meter stick near the tree and then we went back until our finger was the same length as the meter stick. We used our fingers as a meter and we measured how tall the tree was! We recorded our finding s in our outdoor journals! We also used tape measures and rulers!

‘I learned that it’s really easy to measure something that is bigger than you!’ – Katie

‘It was spectacular and amazing!’ – Owen

By P5

 

 

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