The Wildlife Trusts' 30 Days Wild is a nature challenge to do one 'wild' thing for the 30 days of June. Our Westbourne House Nursery nailed it!
To kickstart the Nursery's 30 Days Wild, our Nursery pupils slipped of their socks and shoes and connected with the earth in bare feet.
"As our parents know, we love nature and spend a lot of each day exploring and learning outside, so this challenge is right up our street! We went bare foot in the Secret Garden. The children loved the experience of walking on the grass, describing it as soft, warm, spiky, tickly and sticky. But why settle for only exploring the grass with bare feet? – we 'squelched' in the 'chilly' mud and stroked the 'spiky', 'hard' tree trunk with our feet."
Mrs Watson, Head of Nursery
Slug and snail safari
They lifted stones and logs in the undergrowth during their Slug and Snail Safari. They headed to the woods to play sensory bingo and do some bark rubbing while listening to the sounds of the forest. They got to know more of the trees all around the school. Under the logs the nursery children found woodlice, beetles, centipedes, slugs and even a little lizard.
“They are looking forward to building their own bug hotel later in the week – we have been having such a lovely time!”
Mrs Watson
Hula hoop discovery
Mrs Watson said: “On Thursday we played ‘Hula Hoop Discovery’. We dropped different size Hula Hoops on the ground in different areas outside. The children commented about what they could see in each hoop - daisies, grass, shadows, spiders, mud, and stones were just some of the observations the children made. We then went to the nursery pond with our Hula Hoops where we found weed, algae and little water bugs.”
They shared their already amazing knowledge of trees – “A tree can help you breathe.” “We make paper out of them and we don’t want to waste it.” “We have a tree at Christmas.” “Apples, oranges, pears and bananas come from trees.”
They 'Got to know a tree’ - hugging trees, looking up to see what they could see in the tree, bark rubbing, looking at the rings of the tree on the tree trunk, learning that a young tree is a sapling and so much more. What a ‘treemedous’ morning.
Colour tinted glasses
The Nursery looked at the world through ‘colour tinted glasses’. The children had great fun making their glasses, identifying, choosing and cutting the coloured paper they wanted to use. Then it was outside to try them out, there was great excitement as friends changed colours and the world looked “The same but orange.” “Everything looked the wrong colour.” “The aeroplane (in the sky) looked yellow.”
Another buzz word when it comes to all things natural is ‘camouflage’ The Nursery went to the forest to take part in a Woolly Worms Activity. We knew there were lots of different coloured Woolly Worms to hunt for in the forest – but why would some be easier to find than the others? We learnt that the Woolly Worms that were similar colours to the forest: green, brown and grey (suggested by the children) would be more difficult to see because they would blend in or be camouflaged. Once we had found all the Woolly Worms – we talked about the length of them.
Rainbow colour hunt
We coloured in a rainbow and went on a natural colour hunt and it was amazing how many of the colours in the rainbow we found around the school:
“A buttercup is yellow…I’ve found a daisy, it is yellow, white and green…the grass is green…I’ve found lilac” were just some of the observations the children made.
“My t-shirt says ‘Explore’ and we are exploring for natural things!”
Bug hotel
The nursery pupils built a bug hotel. Inspired by the bug hotel in the Early Years outdoor learning area, the Nursery crew set to work, collecting resources to make their own hotel for the Nursery Secret Garden. The children think the bugs will like grass, flowers, sticks and leaves in the hotel and couldn't wait for the bugs to move in!
The Nursery ended their ‘Bugs Galore’ week by painting bugs of their choice. We have also had an ‘Ugly Bug Ball’ where the children chose their favourite bug mask and had a wonderful ‘Bug Ball’.
