Tracie Dowling

Garden Classroom, rangers, Seedlings, wanderers

Half Term Adventures

Posted on 8th Jun 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

What an amazing week all the children have had for half term! We have been so busy going wild the week went way too quickly and the Wonderers and Rangers are now back in school!

Tracie took Chloe on a wild bike ride all around Croxteth Park. We saw some amazing cows, ducks, horses and squirrels. We went up and down bridges, over a cattle bridge, through the trees and along the very bumpy winding paths. By the time we got back to the car we had cycled 5 miles! Lets hope Chloe slept well for her mum and dad that night!?

One morning while Tracie was putting the washing on the line one of the cats had this baby bird in its mouth. Poppy got upset but luckily we were able to take the bird gently from the cat. We very carefully checked over the bird and decided to put it on the bird feeding table so it’s mummy would find him.

The Seedlings and Martha from the Rangers went on another Liverpool Kindness Rock hunt. Tracie also asked them to look out for mini beasts and wildlife.

When we were all hunting in the rose garden Georgia called out to say she found a bird. Tracie identified it as a Swift as it had a short forked tail, appears black in flight and crescent (like the moon) shaped wings.

On Tuesday, in the park, we saw the gardeners all working hard to make the flower beds pretty. Tracie noticed they were throwing the empty flower trays to one side. We went over to do some investigating. Wonder what they would do with them?

Martha decided to ask the Gardeners if they reuse them? The gardeners said no! Well that’s not good! Tracie asked if we could take them? We can use some for potting on our growing seedlings and recycle the ones we don’t use. The gardeners were happy for us to take them off their hands.

Jack had a wild time playing in the long grass, he giggles away rolling about watching everyone chat and take pictures.

We have had such a fun week, here’s a little gallery of different wild things we have done.

We were not impressed with the amount off rubbish we found in the park! This could harm the wildlife and is not very pleasant to see! This is what we found!

The children asked if we could pick it up and put it all in the bin. Martha said she was ‘quite upset with what we all found!’

What a first week of our 30 Days Going Wild, we have had a fun-packed time! Wow it’s exhausting writing the blog we’ve done so much! I wonder what exciting Wild days we will have next week?

Garden Classroom, rangers, Seedlings, Uncategorized, wanderers

Garden Challenge 2021: Tracie’s Treasures

Posted on 13th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

What a wet May we have all had! Its been so hard gardening because every time we go to do some, the weather changes!!

The garden has loved the wet weather and all the plants and grass are all growing lovely.

Early in the year, we sowed tomatoes in various ways to see which would grow better.

Jacy sowed his tomato seed in a Bisto pot, he thought it would protect the roots when he potted it on. Eventually the Bisto pot will disintegrate when the plant is placed in the grow bag giving the roots extra space to grow.

What a fantastic idea Jacy had. His tomato plant is the strongest, tallest and has a tomato already growing on it! We are so impressed that we are collecting Bisto pots now!

The pictures below are of Tracie holding Jacy’s tomato plant up so you can see the amazingly strong roots!

The middle picture is a tomato plant we grew in the green house in a plastic pot. As you can see there are less roots and they are wonky (we do love wonky veg so thats ok!) they are much smaller, thin and scraggly. The bottom pictures (above) are of our other seedlings which we are growing in toilet rolls and they seem nice and strong! We will start hardening them off soon, ready to be planted among our flowers.

Above is our pot we sowed the Melon seeds in. We have no idea how but we have a tomato plant and weeds! No sign of a melon!

We have tried to grow cucumbers as we had a bumper crop last year. Unfortunately they didn’t grow even though we sowed 6!

We decided to go to the garden centre and buy one already established. Within 2 days they had slug damage! So back to the garden centre we went. This time we have put a water marker on it, covered the pot rim with copper (to keep slugs away) and placed it on gravel. We will see how they go in our next garden post.

family, Seedlings

National Nurses Day

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today the seedlings have celebrated National Nurses Day. Within our setting, we have seven Medical staff parents and we want to make them feel special for all the hard work they do everyday.

The children made their parents some lovely cards to thank them.

Between the Seedlings we have two doctors, three nurses, a Mental Health Worker and a Maternity Nurse so whatever happens, we’ve got it covered!

Emma used bandages and plasters to show the children the kind of work our nurses do. The children had the experience of role play using the bandages and Doctor’s bag.

The children were all so caring Emma and Tracie think we are educating a new generation of medical staff! So worth our efforts! You never know, they may be looking after us one day! Is that a good thing? Haha.

Georgia was off yesterday so we celebrated again today as her mummy works for the NHS.

family, Garden Classroom, Seedlings

Strawberry Wall

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today, in between the rain and the wind, the Seedlings braved the weather to plant up the Strawberry wall. Tracie prepared the wall by filling it with peat-free compost.

At the weekend Tracie dug up the strawberry plants from our plot that the seedlings made last year, she prepared them for the seedlings to replant in the wall.

We have decided to build a new pond in the old strawberry bed for all our growing frogs!

This is Mr Frog, he made Tracie jump! She was sitting on the sofa watching us play when the frog jumped next to her to see what she was doing! We all thought it was funny! Tracie very carefully picked up Mr Frog and took him over to the pond.

family, Garden Classroom, Seedlings

Garden Challenge 2021: Phyllis’ May Garden

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Phyllis has been working hard in her Garden and all the plants are growing well.

The nets Phyllis has had to put up isn’t to stop the birds and pests, its to protect the crops from Hebe the cat!

What a pickle Hebe is! Everywhere Phyllis is, Hebe’s not far away causing mayhem!

All the vegetables are looking lush and growing big and strong. Phyllis has to keep mowing the grass to make it look nice and tidy.

The fruit is coming along too! There will be lovely ripe strawberries to pick and eat, they will go well with scones and cream in June! Something for us to look forward too!

Mind you that’s if they actually get to the kitchen! I know a few Treasures who like to pick and eat them before Phyllis gets a chance!!

Frank has made a Tomato planter in the greenhouse, Phyllis has planted the tomato plants the seedlings have grown for her, there are cucumbers growing too! All you need is onions and you have a salad!

Phyllis has also got lots of lovely colourful flowers around her garden to encourage the bees and butterflies. She has sent me pictures of them, below are my favourite ones. I bet they smell amazing.

family, Garden Classroom, rangers, Uncategorized

Garden Challenge 2021: Gemma’s May Update

Posted on 12th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

At the beginning of May, Gemma sent us some pictures of her garden vegetable raised beds that she had made. They have come on so well and are all starting to grow nice and strong.

Its mid-May now and only two weeks since the above pictures and the raised beds have grown so much! Gemma and the children are doing so well, they must all have green fingers!!

Chloe has been helping Gemma after school with watering and trying to keep Cooper their dog from jumping on them! All our pets want to join in with gardening!

Garden Classroom, Seedlings

Liverpool Kindness Rocks by the Seedlings

Posted on 11th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

The Seedlings went into Tracie’s garden to find some rocks to paint. (Don’t tell Tracie!) Sophie found a big rockery stone and wanted to paint a sunflower, unfortunately nobody could pick it up!

Emma set the table ready to make their pretty stones. Emma suggested they make them into ladybirds as we love our story sack ‘What the Ladybird Heard’, the seedlings all got excited and screamed yeah!!

The girls worked really hard and the ladybirds looked amazing just like the one in the story! Now we need to quickly go to a park and hide them before Tracie realises there are five rocks missing from her garden!

You can buy our personalised What The Ladybird Heard Story Sack on our Etsy shop.

family, Seedlings

Liverpool kindness Rocks: Hiding Our Ladybirds

Posted on 11th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

The sun is shining, so we’re off out to Stanly Park to hide our lovely Ladybirds now that they are varnished.

Emma thinks the trees are a good place to hide and find the rocks, the girls went off to hide the Ladybirds. Afterwards they looked and found new stones. They found one on a tree stump, another in long grass and the last one up a tree. All three were hidden by someone who is great at painting, we found them behind the COVID centre. Emma put them on the Liverpool Kindness Rocks Facebook page and found out they had only just been hidden that morning.

Tracie is going to take a rock and hide it on Sunday when she goes on her 12 mile cycle ride around Wigan. Wonder if anyone will find it and let us know?

Seedlings

Sharing and Taking Turns

Posted on 5th May 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today the Seedlings and Emma took part in some sharing and taking turn activities.

The seedlings sat well on the bumble bee mat to pair insects, leaves and colours together.

Alfie went and found four blue cards! Everyone clapped and cheered him.

The children then put them in pairs and finally into a long line to make a long rainbow of colours.

The Seedlings played pairs, they where so patient waiting for their friends to take turns and choose a card matching them.

After the activity Tracie asked the children what their favourite game was? Georgia said she likes the snap game and did a karate chop on the floor to show me! Never going to mess with Georgia!!

Sophie told Tracie its her turn to talk! And stepped in-front of Georgia and said “ladybird crunched a leaf” and her favourite game was the Ladybird.

Alfie loves everything as usual!

Seedlings

St George’s Day

Posted on 23rd Apr 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Over the last few days Emma and the seedlings have been busy making St. George’s Day Shields.

First of all, Emma was careful and cut out shield shapes from an old cardboard box.

The Seedlings then painted their own shield white. (And the table top!)

The Seedlings had to wait overnight for the white paint to dry. They then painted a red cross on their shield to represent the English flag.

Next, they coloured in a dragon printable which Emma cut out and the seedlings stuck it onto the front of the shield.

Georgia told Tracie she was scared of dragons as they have fire coming out their mouth.

The seedlings were all proud showing their mummy’s and daddy’s the shields when they were picked up, they walked out holding them ready to slay the dragons on the way home.