This week’s activities

Making bird feeders

The children have been thinking about the wildlife that visits our garden and what we can do to help them as the weather turns colder. This week, some of the children helped to make birdfeeders. As you can imagine, we get through a lot of toilet roll, and the inner tube can be used in lots of different ways. On this occasion, it became the foundation of our birdfeeders. The lard had softened enough to make it spreadable, so they used plastic knives to spread the lard over the toilet rolls before rolling them in birdseed. It was interesting for them to see how the two substances reacted together, the lard becoming like glue for the seeds to stick to. They then used sticks that they had found in the garden, putting them through the middle of the feeder and then attached string to hang them from the tree. They carefully watched as the teacher put them on the branches, high enough that predators – we have some local cats – aren’t able to pounce on the birds as they feed. Children are fascinated by nature and they are learning how they can help it and take care of the natural world around them.

Planting winter pansies

To help brighten up Robin Garden, the children helped to plant some winter pansies. Helping the teacher, they thought about what the pansies would need to help them grow and be strong and healthy. They looked at the soil in the tyres and decided that there wasn’t enough. They then helped to fill the tyres up with nice new soil which has lots of nutrients that the plants need. As the soil was a little dry, they decided that it needed some water. They used the watering cans and water from our water butt to dampen the soil ready for planting. The teacher talked about why we use water from the water butt and not the tap and how the water gets from the clouds in the form of rain and collects in the water butt for us to use. This led to talk about how hot it was in the summer and, because there was very little rain, we had a hosepipe ban. The children then helped to carefully plant the pansies and look at their cheerful ‘faces’. The children will help take care of them over the coming months and will hopefully learn about being kind and caring towards living things.

As always there are some photos of the above activities on our website, www.anthonyroperpreschool.co.uk, and Facebook page.

Have a lovely weekend.