Apr 24, 2017 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Whole School
A couple of years ago the environmental services manager in Aberdeen City asked his staff about their work with local schools and nurseries. The response he received was quite considerable. It includes: Help the school to design, develop or revitalise school green...
Mar 14, 2017 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening
For schools and pre-school settings wishing to increase biodiversity within their school grounds or outdoor space, then planting a wide range plants, shrubs and trees that benefit different wildlife helps. Biodiversity literally means diversity of life. Native flora...
Oct 27, 2016 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Health & Wellbeing
Whilst in Hong Kong, I stayed at the Ark Eden Project. Being an environmental organisation, the focus is on living lightly. Outside the compost toilet, the hand washing facilities consisted of a small bowl of soapberries. These were used in place of soap. It reminded...
May 23, 2016 | Art & Music Outdoors, Gardening, Nature Play & Learning, Science Outdoors
Recently I saw a blog post about creating natural watercolour paint from fresh flowers. With lots of flowers appearing now spring is here, I thought it would be a timely opportunity to have a go at this myself – a practice run before trialling on a group of...
Sep 27, 2015 | Gardening, Nature Play & Learning, Technologies
Every autumn or spring, I like to try something new or different to make with foraged or grown fruit and berries. I’ve tried making rosehip syrup which was lovely. This year I managed to be sufficiently organised to try my hand at making a fruit leather. You can...
Jun 30, 2015 | Gardening
Last week I had the privilege of visiting Riverbank Primary School in Aberdeen to be one of several judges of the trug gardening competition. This year, the school decided that it would be a great way to celebrate the outdoor spaces and raise awareness of the benefits...
May 30, 2015 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Literacy Outdoors, Technologies
Recently I blogged about making seed packets from unwanted books. This is a brilliant concept in that it’s an informal approach to children continuing to interact with text in a way that is short, sweet and fun. When I posted this blog, Mark Paterson, the...
May 14, 2015 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Nature Play & Learning
I have never been a big fan of the commercial flower presses. They are fiddly to use, a fixed shape and usually too small at that. Normally I just press flowers between by inserting them between kitchen roll and sticking them inside a big heavy book. This is fine at...
Mar 11, 2015 | Community Involvement, Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Literacy Outdoors
There are many books especially textbooks and non-fiction books which are simply no longer fit for purpose. Some charities, such as Books Abroad, will take unwanted educational texts, but their criteria needs to be checked and only specific books can be donated....
Aug 11, 2014 | Community Involvement, Gardening, RME Outdoors
A couple of months ago, I was passing through Elgin and took the opportunity to visit the Biblical Garden, which is the only one of its kind in Scotland. Having never visited before, I was rather intrigued to find out more. They are known for housing some...
May 21, 2014 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Science Outdoors
In recent years the old-fashioned log pile has been superceded by the hip and trendy mini beast hotels in school grounds. Whilst these are a lovely form of recycling and repurposing of various materials this post is a plea to all schools to provide create lots of log...
May 18, 2014 | Art & Music Outdoors, Gardening, Health & Wellbeing, RME Outdoors, Social Subjects Outdoors
There is something very poignant about seeing a single flower, such as the image of a red poppy at Flander’s Field and knowing its role in Remembrance Sunday and its story associated with The Great War. Over the years, flowers have become associated with...
May 4, 2014 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Literacy Outdoors
Recently I visited Westpark Nursery in Aberdeen, which had been donated a large raised bed – the sort that is traditionally used around towns for floral displays. At first the staff and children wondered how to use it as it seemed too big and too high...
Jul 25, 2013 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening
I have a very small garden. It suffers from benign neglect. It is my Garden of Experiments. I used to see what will grow happily if not looked after very well. My theory was that the plants which flourish here will survive the ins and outs of a school garden. I...
May 18, 2013 | Gardening, Maths Outdoors, Science Outdoors
Plant identification is a quirky matter. As a child, I was not especially interested in wildflowers, trees or other plants. Family walks were decidedly boring if there was too much plant talk and not enough running, climbing and swinging thrown into the mix. So when...
Apr 13, 2013 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Science Outdoors, Technologies
In March I was facilitating a twilight workshop about gardening in the Early Years. Here in Aberdeen City, many practitioners work in settings where vandalism happens if anything is left outside, including children’s gardening efforts. So one of the things we do...
Mar 9, 2013 | Gardening, Nature Play & Learning, Science Outdoors
One of the beautiful aspects of undertaking learning activities outside, is that interdisciplinary learning becomes the norm rather than the exception. It’s hard not to acquire more information and understanding about nature or our local environment when we...
Nov 17, 2012 | Developing School Grounds & Outdoor Spaces, Gardening, Technologies
Many years ago, I was fortunate enough to spend the day in the company of Tim Gill who took me on a magical tour of the Kate Greenaway Nursery and Glamis Adventure Playground. Our final destination was a temporary pop up community play space which oozed wonderful wood...
Sep 23, 2012 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening
When I facilitate courses for the Early Years team in Aberdeen City, most of them happen in different establishments. I like this for several reasons. I get to find out more about a school and its nursery class. All the participants get an opportunity to visit and see...
Sep 15, 2012 | Early Years Outdoors, Gardening, Play Resources
I know some people think it is inappropriate to allow or even encourage children to play with items that are not proper toys. But very often it is these objects that are open-ended and have a high play value because there is no fixed purpose or pre-defined way of...
