Newsletter 5- 18.11.21

Learning Outdoors...
Last week outdoor learning was full on autumn mode! EYFS, years 1, 2 and 3 were
exploring the signs of autumn, with a particular focus on autumn leaves. We have
been using them to make lots of wonderful crafts, including leaf animals, leaf masks
and giant leaf letters! It’s been ‘leaftacular!’
To enable greater farm school provision for our children, we have decided that our
school raised beds will be used for EYFS-Year 3, with 4-6 having been given a section
of Mr Richard’s allotment. This allows our older children greater hands on experience
with gardening. Their plot stays with them from years 4-6 so they get a long time to
develop the space and are able to learn more about the cultivation of crops, including
aspects such as soil health and crop rotation etc… Last week year 4 and 5 headed up
to the allotment to decide which section they wanted to use. They then worked as a
class to plan where their vegetables would be and have covered them over ready to
get planting in the spring. They are looking forward to having lots of produce to share
later in the year.
Year 6 were continuing with their WW1 topic, this time creating a meal as the soldiers
would have. Their task was to cook a stew on the campfire. They spent the first part
of the morning preparing the vegetables ready to cook. We prepared two batches,
one being cooked on the campfire and another cooked in a slow cooker back in the
classroom to compare cooking methods. Unfortunately, just before went to get started
on the cooking, the stock cubes managed to disappear so we had to make do with
just the water and veg. We used this as a learning opportunity as the brave soldiers
of WW1 never had luxuries when it came to food and would have to settle with just
boiled veg at times. Despite our little mishap, the children were in high spirits. Interestingly,
for the comparison, the children much preferred the veg cooked on the
campfire over that cooked in the slow cooker.
This week all year groups have been using the skills they have learnt in forest school
over the past term to begin crafts to sell at the Christmas Fair. It’s been great to see
everyone applying themselves to the task at hand and exploring different ways to
create their final product.