Bonjour Snape Superstars!
How are you all doing?
I'm so pleased that some people have been commenting on the blog posts, please do write in with what you've been up to!
I'd love the whole school to have a go at bird spotting.
Find a quiet comfy nice spot in your garden to sit for 10 mins. What birds can you see and hear? Look them up in a book or online to find out their names.
I was SO excited to spot one of these in our garden this morning, right outside my window when I was making a cup of tea!!! They are the most beautiful incredible little birds called a Bullfinch - the boys have a brighter colouring than the girls and that coral colour on their chest is SO bright and like a living peach with wings, they are just incredible. Sadly they're quite rare these days, so this is only about the 4th time in my life that I've seen one!
What exciting birds can you see and hear?
I've been blown away listening to their singing every day too. Are there different ones which sing in the morning to those who sing at night?
Let me know what you find and what your favourite ones are. I can't wait to hear.
The RSPB website is a great resource www.rspb.org.uk
Now for the really fun part - firstly when you see them, can you sit still long enough to hear them sing!? Can you note down some fun descriptive words and share them? Once you have identified some birds, look up their songs on here, then we'll be able to learn to identify the birds not just by looking at them but by hearing them! It's amazing, you'll be experts :-)
(copy and paste this link to look up bird songs, also possible on the rspb website).
https://www.british-birdsongs.uk/?fbclid=IwAR0wGPS6LvjfgJ6f42O_K1SxmOWI5vvg32MRQddyfg3HEOw3KjJyxWRq9C8

HI EVERONE! :-)
how are you all?
I was so so happy to hear some comments in the last blog post, please keep it up, if you can all send a short message each week of what you've been up to in your gardens or in nature it'd be SO amazing to hear. Even better if you can draw a picture, poster, writing, poem, description, make a song or a dance about anything to do with nature or gardening, do share your experiences - think of these comments like the talking-stick circle, a place to share and communicate with each other.
Here's something we've done for you and I thought you'd all enjoy to have a go.
Take some paper or write it when you're back.
We started by doing this in our garden, Uma and Flynn made a clipboard using a  hard book and a piece of paper, wrote collumns in for all of the 5 senses, then we added an extra category for 'what do you love' (you can do that instead of taste if you like, as you know we have to be careful with ensuring we're eating nothing poisonous). They then wrote down 5 for each of the senses that they smelled, saw, felt, heard etc. Uma is older, so she also did some descriptive writing about what she experienced, she used lots of creative vocabulary which was fun :-) They loved it so much that the fun extended into a whole adventure into the forest, you can do this on a walk, they climbed trees, explored lots of different textures of tree bark, smelled and touched everything, as we went we thought of how to describe it all. We listed to beautiful birds, the wind and my favourite part was hearing about the things they loved. They ended up collecting lots of sticks too to make something with in the garden and I found smaller ones for peas to grow up.
Send me your lists and descriptions of your sensory adventures in your gardens or on walks, what can you find! What does everything smell, feel and look like?
We also found the most DISGUSTING mushroom I've ever seen, yuk! Uma poked it with a stick and it was like a giant spot which popped and oozed, yuk! It was very funny but so gross!
Have fun everyone :-)
Stay well :-)

Strawberry bear and I have been very busy planting the strawberries, sowing seeds, planting potatoes  AND sorting out getting a rabbit proof fence built around the garden. Those cheeky hungry bunnies annoyingly ate ALL the lovely sweetpeas you planted AND all the spinach and everything else which wasn't under the net! OH NO! So, instead of worrying about it and getting upset we've found a solution with the help of Mrs Gallagher and Andy. Lucky us, we're having a rabbit proof fence put around the veg garden, horray! It would be too sad at a time like this, when growing our own food is so important, to have everything eaten and we won't give up, so we're SOOOO grateful that it's possible to make a rabbit proof fence.
Just like Snoopy says on the home page of your website - it's about how well you bounce. Do you know that I've been a gardener for 17 years and at my other job, an amazing beautiful garden I look after once a week, I'd sown trays and trays of seeds a few weeks ago - they all got eaten by mice!!!! I'd always learnt to sow one extra for the birds and one extra for the slugs - but never for the MICE!!! Oh my goodness! THEN I'd planted a whole bed of lovely cabbages and sprouts, they were looking so happy and growing amazingly, but they all got eaten by pigeons!!!! OH NO!!! It'd be easy to give up, but I'd rather bounce back like Snoopy, so we found a way to help mouse-proof the seed table, we made sticks with string and CDs to deter the pigeons, we've learnt some lessons, taken action, so we'll keep calm and carry on. There are always lessons to be learnt and challenges to face up to, growing to do, the best remedy is a sense of humour :-) cheeky mice and bunnies ;-) they must've thought our veg was really delicious!

What have you all been up to outside?
It's very dry! Hottest dryest April on record perhaps? Usually we have April showers and it pours with rain which gets all the plants off to a good start with the new spring warmth.
Are there ways you can catch and store water in your gardens? Have you been watering your plants? More importantly have you been watering yourselves!? It's so important to stay hydrated and remember to do this at home like you do at school.

I've got lots of fun projects and pictures to post for you, keep looking on here and do leave comments. It was great hearing about Jed's garden at home, so far he's planted potatoes, sunflowers and quinoa! Can't wait to hear more about everyone's growing journeys and forest school play outside.

Here is a really fun task: can you spot these 4 beautiful native butterflies in your gardens and on your walks!? Keep your eyes peeled. Can you learn their names, write a poem, draw or paint them? They've started appearing, these are usually the first to wake up, I had a beautiful peacock butterfly at home, it was quite sleepy so it sat on my hand in the sunshine and warmed up. I also saw an orange tip in the veg garden at forest school last week!

Happy Days at home! Make the most of this precious time with your families :-)

I've taken some pictures of your favourite trees and how they are developing.
Can you work out which ones they are?
There's Horse Chestnut (the beloved conker tree), Grandmother oak and some blossom.

What buds and blossoms can you spot in your gardens and on your walks!?
Can you identify them!
When my husband was triaing to be a Tree Surgeon, he had to have an exam where he identified ALL the trees, only from their buds! So tricky. Ash are easy to identify from buds because the tiny emerging buds are black.

It is incredible watching buds emerge, I think they're amazing.
You can trace and track the journey of emerging buds and blossoms.
Write, sing, draw about it in story, poem or fact format.

It's fun pressing blossom flowers too.
You can make pictures with the blossom flowers on the ground, or make it snow by standing underneath and gently shaking a branch :-)
I saw a fun idea of colelcting flowers in a bowl of water, then recording with slow motion the act of throwing the flowers and water out of the bowl! The effect was amazing! Maybe we should all give it a try :-)

Let me know in the comments how your garden is growing and please do share any work.

Strawberry Bear and I were utterly delighted to receive an amazing gift for the school garden - for all of you - of some delicious amazing looking strawberry plants from Ladybird Nursery. Thankyou Ladybird! So grateful, lucky Snape and lucky us!
Maybe we should find some netting so the birds don't eat them!?
Strawberries are our favourite!

We were also delighted to get a wonderful delivery of compost and manure which we've bought from Ladybird. Times are tough for small local businesses but they do deliver and it's amazing how everyone is adapting. They're not sponsoring me to say this, I've simply been spreading the word because there is a wonderful thing called reciprocity - kids, look it up in the dictionary, it's a beautiful thing. For example, we can support their business by ordering plants and compost, this in turn helps us to have plants to grow (veg, flowers, fruit) which we can grow in our gardens at home. This keeps us well fed and healthy! 

Kestrels and Eagles: Do you remember how the fire keeps Stig Of The Dump warm 4 times? Well growing fruit and veg in your own gardens at home keeps you healthy MANY times, how many times can you list? What aspects and why?

Can you make a poster to illustrate it and inspire others to 'GROW YOUR OWN!'

Here's my list for now, can you add anything to it?

-Being outside - healthy mind and body, enjoying nature and fresh air.
-Exercise - healthy body and mind.
-Good nutrition, vitimins, healthy body, especially healthy immune system!
-Keeps us learning = healthy mind (I'm still learning all the time about gardening!)
-Keeps us healthy by not needing to go out to shops so much, therefore reducing risk.
-We can be reslilent and rely upon ourselves more = healthy mind, less stress.
-If we garden organically, it also is healthier for our bodies, no chemicals.
-Organic growing is also healthy for the planet, wildlife and eco-systems.

I hope we can turn this crazy difficult time into one with silver linings where we can all learn new habbits which help us and the planet to be more healthy and happy. Long may they continue, even after things go back to normal :-)

THANKYOU LADYBIRD NURSERY IN SNAPE, YOU ARE SO KIND & AMAZING!
Here's their website if anyone wants it http://www.ladybirdnurseries.co.uk/

HAPPY EASTER!!!
Hope you've all been staying safe, staying well and enjoying the incredible sunshine!

Appologies I hadn't posted sooner, I had a whole load of posts ready and waiting for you but was having technical difficulties at home, All sorted now touch wood and it's been holidays anyway, so hopefully you'll enjoy having some things on here to read and inspire once term begins again next week. It's good to have a break.  I'll try from now on to be regular with posts so you can check on a monday, or any day after that and there'll be something new every week.

I did think these potatoes looked quite like eggs when I was planting them. This was a couple of weeks ago, in time for the full moon.
Q: Can you remember why it's a good idea to plant them in time for the full moon!?
A: It's becuase the full moon is when the water table is drawn closer to the earth's surface by the pull of the moon. (That's one of the reasons why we get 'spring tides' which are higher tides than usual.) So it's a great time for planting. Feel free to google, write, make a poster & share more info of any kind on this topic!

These were the first batch of potatoes, an earlier variety called Nicola!

Starlings: do you remember that amazing cart of manure you all collected!? Well I've finally been able to use it for the potatoes! It will give them great food. The soil here is so poor and sandy, we need much more manure!!!

If you're still not back at school by the time these have grown then we'll put them all in the village larder for you to come and try. I'll keep posting their growing journey for you.

It may be too tricky in your garden, but if so, you can easily plant potatoes in a big pot or sack-type pot which is easy and fun to do. They're also a great 'pioneer' crop, which means they're excellent starter crop for turning over an old bit of lawn or waste-land into a good flower or veg bed, they help break up the soil as they grow and the initial digging and manure helps too, it means all the hard digging work is done by you and the potatoes and you then have a good fertile bed with the added manure for the following year!

Harvesting potatoes is like digging up treasure! It's amazing to be able to grow your own food, an essential life skill. What would we all do without potatoes!? They're not the most glamerous of veg, but wow are they a staple our lives depend on!?
What are you favourite ways to eat potatoes!?
Which potato dishes can YOU cook at home.
(Parents, it's great teaching even young kids to use a potato peeler and a blunt knife to help you chop and prepare meals, we'd do that kind of thing at forest school, so as long as you're watching and teach them to be careful, you'll probably find they might love it. I'm sure lots of you do this already, but incase it's helpful to know, making every day tasks into a learning lesson is a great opportunity to teach them essential life skills :-)

What else can you do with potatoes!? I'd like to try some potato printing :-)
Have any of you planted any potatoes yet?
If not there's still time, here's what to do, which, if you look closely, you'll be able to figure out from the photos.

1) Dig a trench, at least a spade's head deep
2) Line with compost &/or well rotted manure
3) Fork in a little to mix it with the soil a bit
4) Gently push down your potatoes / earth eggs one at a time into the soil, at least a foot apart. Be careful not to damage any sprouts coming out of the potatoes, they're the magic shoot which will grow!
5) Gently cover over the potatoes with the soil piled up next to the trench.
6) You'll have extra soil because of the manure/compost added, so use a rake to carefully and gently mound up the soil in a line above your row of potatoes. This is like tucking them into bed with a warm cosy duvet! I love it! The extra earth on top helps protect new shoots from cold nights. Frost would kill them, so if there is some surprise frost coming and new shoots are showing, you can cover them with soil in advance and mound up more soil if needed. Hopefully though, now that it's mid april we might not have to worry to much about this, but you never know! :-)
6) Water! Can you see in the last photos the 3 mounds of potato rows and the sprinkler set-up ... do water regularly in dry spells as they'll need good water to form juicy, tasty, numerous, healthy tubours.

Please share any work you do from this, you can make a project out of anything you do in the garden, take photos, draw pictures, or write a poem, a song, a story, a dance, a scientific experiment; simply write up what you've done and give evidence eg a photo or drawing. You can also describe how doing this makes you feel. eg For me, planting potatoes is quite hard work with all the digging, I tend to get a sore back and it takes some determination, but I feel SOOOO so much better for doing it, I love being in the fresh air, getting some exercise and knowing that I'm growing some food, which, especially in this crazy time is amazing to build resiliance and feel we're doing something positive as a school which will help us all. It means I'm living healthily and eating healthily, while building resiliance and confidence for a better future. You can do this too! And you're all with me already on this school garden journey despite being at home, so I look forward to sharing the journey of the potatoes growing!

(Parents: Forest school is about developing your childs spirit and individuality, so feel free to suggest these ideas to them and let them choose for themselves what they'd like to do, hopefully the results will surprise and amaze you, I'd love to hear. Try as much as you can to get them to do it for themselves. But of course, if it's something you end up doing together it will be precious memories and time together which you'll hopefully treasure for years to come. Don't worry if it's sometimes frustrating and difficult, that's normal and happens to us all :-) If they're asking you questions, then how much can you question back to them and model the learning with them for finding the answer? This can take a little practice, it's like forming a new habbit, but is much better just handing them answers on a plate. It helps to build and develop their enquiring, inventive minds. :-)
Most importantly, have fun!!! :-)