Wild Things Autumn Term 2022
Weds 28 September
Wild Things kicked off the Autumn Term with a minibeast hunt. It s a good way to introduce common species of invertebrates and to start thinking about the habitats where they live. We found a wide range of minibeasts: slugs and snails, centipedes, millipedes and woodlice, worms, black lace-web spiders, harvestmen and ground beetles.
Weds 5 October
We almost called off the outdoor session due to the heavy downpours throughout the day, but as the rain seemed to tail off around 3pm we decided to give it a try. We were looking at how animals choose to make their homes and tried our hands at making some weatherproof homes for some paper animals. The children had to source natural materials and create a home with space for their animal to shelter in and include a waterproof roof to keep them dry. As the rain had pretty much stopped by now, we had to bring along a watering can to test if their roof was able to stop water leaking in. The children took photos of their own minibeast homes.
We followed up the activity by making a larger den for the children to sit in.
Weds 12 October
Following on with the minibeast home theme, we had our first session at creating real habitats and tidying up our minibeast 'hotel' in Wild Things Wood. We used a range of materials from cardboard boxes and tubes, recycled materials such as used paper coffee cups and containers, to natural materials such as hay, leaf litter, sticks and sawdust. We combined these to make a range of minibeast homes to place in the hotel. We also had two Bee-Bricks that were donated by a kind parent.
Weds 19 October
We finished off preparing Wild Things Wood for the winter. We changed the bedding in the hedgehog house and finished off a reptile and bug pile. The 'reptile and bug pile' is a layered pile of straw, sticks, soil, another bigger layer of sticks a think layer of straw and then completely covered in leaves. This will settle over time, but makes a nice cosy pile for slow worms, a range of insects and even hedgehogs to hibernate in overwinter.
We were hoping to begin coppicing some of our willow stools for the winter and had watched a video about coppicing when getting ready, but we rand out of time. We will return to this after half term, so watch this blog for the coppicing story.
Weds 9 Nov
This week we looked at seeds and watched a Youtube read aloud video of Eric Carle's The Tiny Seed while we were getting ready.
We went to the rear car park to add some spring wild flowers to our "Waste of Space" project. We planted 24 wild garlic bulbs around the beetle pyramid and lots of purple toadflax, wild thyme, Betony and clustered bellflower seeds. Hopefully these will add to the 120 wildflower plugs we planted this summer. We used wooden dibbers to make the holes for the wild garlic and used hands and garden forks to work the seeds into the soil.
Once we had planted out the bulbs and seeds, we used a leaf guide to look for fallen leaves from oak, hawthorn, hazel, field maple and other native trees and shrubs.
Our camera was playing up today so we only managed to get a couple of photos.
Weds 16 Nov
We had to change our plans for Wild Things tonight.
We had watched a video on the benefits for wildlife with coppicing and started our 'tool talk' on using secateurs safely when it started really raining realy heavily. We were caught out and decided to switch to some inside learning. We had a very lively session with our Nocturnal Animals sound quiz, followed with an interactive "Whose poo?" game and sharing and discussing our wildlife artifacts. The session was centered around how to identify animals that we can see, by their sounds or signs they leave behind.
Nocturnal Animals sound quiz
We listened to a range of sounds from eight animals, all found in and around Hook and had to guess which animal made what sound. There was a great deal of competition but everyone did well at guessing the animals.
"Whose poo?"
It wasn't just this game from the RSPB website that was animated! The children absolutely loved it and became very excited. The game involves looking at a picture of an unkown poo and guessing which one of three possible animals 'deposited' it. We all became poo professors and got several of them right.
Wildlife Artifacts
We shared several artifacts and discussed facts about each one:
- Fox skull
- Grass snake sloughs (skin shed as they grow)
- Wild honeybee honey comb
- Wasp nests
- Minibeasts: Male stag beetle, lesser stag beetle, hornet, wasp, bumblebee
Weds 23 Nov
We had a discussion on a project to reintroduce beavers into parts of Hampshire. We are taking part in a competition to name a pair of beavers, with the winning class or group being able to visit the location for a wonderful outdoor learning experience. We will be letting you know more about this project soon, but we have to keep it under wraps for now.
We also talked about the benefits of coppicing to wildlife and visited the main copse to choose hazel and goat willow branches to coppice. The children used secatuers to cut two or three branches which we took to Wild Things Wood to weave into the hedgehog fence.
We also compared how coppicing and the fence we ere weaving was similar to what a beaver does in the wild.
Weds 30 Nov
As this was our last session, we spent the time making things.
Teasel Hedgehogs
We watched a couple of videos about the 'Hedgehog Street' and 'Hedgehog Friendly Campus' projects as we have registered with both and after Christmas we will be implementing some hedgehog friendly features in our grounds and getting the whole school involved. We followed this up with making mini hedgehog decorations using teasel seed heads for the body and haws from hawthorns for their eyes. Both of these were harvested from our school grounds.
We made a card hedgehog house and filled it with straw for bedding, before giving our little hedgehogs a trim to remove stalks and the remains of the seed head caps. We then glued on a pair of haws for eyes and settled them in to bed to hibernate for the winter.
Bird feeders
We finished up the session by making our garden birds a Christmas present... pine cone bird feeders. We smeared melted suet over the pine cones and then rolled them in bird seed. A Christmas feast for the birds.