Garden Classroom – Page 3 – Tracie's Treasures

bug hunt, family, Garden Classroom, Honey Bees, Bees, Great British Bees, outdoor play, rangers, Seedlings, Uncategorized

Look Who’s Collecting Nectar In Our Garden

Posted on 3rd May 20238th May 2023 by Tracie Dowling

Did you know Honeybees fly about 55,000 miles at 12mph just to make one jar of honey! Today in our garden we found not 1 but 5 amazing nectar gatherers!

Some bees have very long tongues so they can reach into tubular-shaped flowers like our Foxgloves, honeysuckle, and snapdragons. The children are growing all three of these plants so we are hoping the bees take advantage and have some of our nectar.

We like to encourage the bees to come into our garden because they are part of the biodiversity on which we all depend on to live and underpin healthy ecosystems, helping all of nature to thrive. Honeybees, wild bees, and bumblebees pollinate our crops which helps them to grow.

A Few Bees From The 270 Found In Great Britain

The Honeybee is the best-known bee in Great Britain but there is actually over 270 species of bee recorded here!

George asked Tracie an amazing question today about the Bees ” Tracie where do the bees sleep?’ Tracie explained she didn’t know but we would find out. We decided to ask Google and she said “Female solitary bees sleep in their nests but male solitary bees sleep outside, they rest in places like flowers or long grass stalks. We also found out you can tell a bee is asleep because its antennae are still, its head, and its wings are tucked into its body.

Grace asked ‘ do Bees close their eyes at bedtime?’ another amazing question! Bees actually do close their eyes and relax like humans do. George said ‘Human?” We are called humans, George because we are living beings.

Elsie asked if bees cuddle? We looked it up on the internet and the answer was that they love to hold each other’s legs while they sleep! How cute is that!

George reminded us that we saw a bumblebee who looked poorly last year and we helped him feel better. I asked the children if they could remember how we made him better ‘ and they said ‘gave him water on a spoon’. I told them they were so clever to remember and that we also added sugar to the water and it dissolved and it gave the bee energy to make him feel better to fly home.

I then showed them the picture of my dad on the Tracietreasures web site, he was in his bee-keeping uniform and I explained how he collects the bee’s honey from his hives and puts it into jars.

We all had snacktime of honey sandwiches nom nom.

What an amazing activity we had today, started out as a walk around the garden and ended up with information collecting using Google, internet, and books all about our Bees, what amazing questions the children asked me.

bug hunt, childminding, Garden Classroom, Seedlings

Today’s Weeding The Garden Ended Up A Bug Hunt!!

Posted on 19th Apr 2023 by Tracie Dowling

George came in this morning skipping full of the joys of spring, telling us how sunny it was outside. He asked if we could all go out to play in the sunshine

We decided to get out buckets and trowels to do a little weeding in the front garden because as George put it “tis a mess!”

George was so eager he went full bull in a china shop and pulled out the first flower he found, shoving it in my face. “Tracie, Tracie is this a weed?” “No George thats not a weed thats my tulip!”

“ I will take it home for my mummy she loves red roses!”

Elsie found a wiggly worm and called us over to have a look. Elsie moved on and found a snail which she described as “sticky, yuk” so I had to pick it up.

We just kept finding bugs so decided to ditch the weeding (probably safer if we want our flowers to survive George!) and turn the activity into a bug hunt.

We ended up finding, an ants nest with loads of ants marching around, a lily Beatle, lots of wood louse, a ladybird and a carrot! A carrot!! Guess who found that!!!

We went over nearer the house and found a lovely red Crocosmia, a hidden pansy, a blue Felicia and a fly on a leaf. This time it wasn’t George who found it, ‘twas Elsie’

What a lovely day out in the garden, lets hope the sun is shining tomorrow.

Garden Classroom, number games, Seedlings

Making Our Own Number Blocks.

Posted on 1st Apr 2023 by Tracie Dowling

We had fun making number blocks today. We printed off 1-10 sets of leaves and a sunflower head which we stuck onto our big duplo bricks.

We first played a match the number game, the children all helped each other to place them on the corresponding number.

George was able to count up to and recognise beyond the number 10! How amazing! Now we need to print off and make leaf bricks from 11-20 so George can learn to recognise them in sequence too! Grace found numbers 1-4 and place them on top of the correct leaf, sh was so pleased with herself.

Elsie found the yellow sunflower and enjoyed building the leaves which made the flower grow bigger and bigger!

childminding, family, frog Spawn, frogs, Garden Classroom, hydroponics, outdoor play, rangers, Seedlings, The Theatre, wanderers

A Walk Around The Garden

Posted on 1st Apr 202321st Apr 2023 by Tracie Dowling

Today we walked around the garden to look at all the changes we made last year and to make notes on what we want to plan for this year.

The winding footpath we made last year is ideal for walking and running about avoiding the messy mud. The children love how they can run around and peep through the planting bug hunting, plant spotting and watching everything grow. They love the bug pile and saw some worms and ants.

We have sown all our bedding plants this year to save money, we also used peat free compost to help save our planet. The seeds have now grown into healthy young plants so we potted them on, ( put into bigger pots) and put them into the cold frame to wait for the last frost, we will then put them in our living wall.

This years project is to make the decking area into a nicer living ‘Outdoor Classroom’ We have chosen

Petunia, Lobelia and Fuchsia’s to have trailing, ground cover in the vertical wall garden. We will add the Herbs (growing in our greenhouse) for tasting and smelling into the wall as soon as they have matured.

We have Roses, Honeysuckle, Jasmine and Passiflora for climbing up the trelliss and giving off a floral fragrance. Our aim is to make the ‘Outdoor Classroom stimulate all our five senses. To make the decking more accessible for the babies we are going to add Astro turf so it’s safer for them to crawl and play on.

We were so excited to see our frogs while out and about, they were keeping an eye on their spawn, this will soon turn into tadpoles and frogs. Tracie taught us how to carefully remove some of the water weeds and she added some bunches of watercress to freshen up the pond to make the water less Murky so we can see the pond life without disturbing them.

Our Big Plans For This Year 2023:

We have decided in our living classroom we are going to:

Lay artificial grass to make the decking completely baby friendly.

Make a toy box storage area for outdoor equipment

Pot up the Herbs and make labels.

Make a water feature for relaxing sound and to have water play

In the Greenhouse we are going to grow:

Tomatoes, Cucumbers, Loofa , Chilli and start off our Cabbage, Cauliflower, and Broccoli

Sow winter flowering plants to give out Garden all year color and edibles.

In the front garden:

We want to encourage more wildlife in, so we are thinking about making a new pond, putting in more hedging, and adding some hidden bird feeders.

So we have BIG plans, so keep watching our blogs to see how we go….

childminding, Garden Classroom, Seedlings

Exciting Watching The Snow Falling

Posted on 13th Mar 202313th Mar 2023 by Tracie Dowling

The children were amazed watching the snow falling.

It settled very quickly and started to pile up on the outside door frame. George thought it looked cold, Elsie wanted to build a snowman and we think Elliott wanted to eat it because he kept licking the window!! Yucky!!

childminding, family, Garden Classroom, Seedlings, Uncategorized

Daffodils in our Park and Garden

Posted on 7th Mar 2023 by Tracie Dowling

The children are loving the bright Daffodils in the park and our garden at the moment.

We have been reading the Poem by William Wordsworth about the lively dancing Daffodils, we decided to make beautiful pictures of them for a display to brighten up out playroom.

William Wordsworth Poem

I wandered lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o’er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

The poem is about being one who is close to nature and enjoys in its company and never feel sad or lonely. Nature is the greatest gift or blessing to mankind. It has the power to heal our miseries, learn and make us lively again.

childminding, Garden Classroom, greenhouse, rangers, Seedlings, Uncategorized, wanderers

Spring Additions To Our Kitchen Garden

Posted on 24th Feb 202322nd Apr 2023 by Tracie Dowling

We’ll finally after wanting one for years we have a Green house! Whoop Whoop

However it was not easy to put together. Gemma came around to help, it took us three days of total frustration to get it together.

We had to start with the base, we soon found out we needed a wooden base for the metal one to sit on!

We tried hard to follow the instructions but they didn’t make sense! we finally got the sides up then found the window fixers wouldn’t fit!

We had to take everything apart and start again making sure the ridge was on the outside for the glass.

When we finally got it up (Chloe helped too!) we realised it wasn’t suitable for the area we had erected it, so had to take it down and then put it up AGAIN!

Finally its in place and is full of growing plants.

childminding, family, Garden Classroom, hydroponics, Hydroponics with children, rangers, Uncategorized

We Are Learning About Hydroponics

Posted on 12th Jan 20237th Mar 2023 by Tracie Dowling

Today with the Wonderers, we set up our Hydroponic System to start growing our Fruit and vegetables using air and water rather than soil.

First of all we discussed how we grow our plants. Mason said he remembers sowing the seeds last year in modular trays and soil. Chloe explained her mum uses coco coir at home to grow house plants.

Alfie said he grows his in the garden using the dirt and wiggly worms.

I explained to the group all about hydroponics and how it actually works. We started by opening the box to see what was inside. As soon as Alfie saw all the bits he was off to play, Mason said he wanted to plant the seeds but not read the instructions with us, so he went off to play too! Chloe was a superstar and read out the instructions, we then started to build the system so it was ready to sow the seeds.

We followed the instructions very carefully and managed to attach the pump, light arm, lights and base together.

Next steps where to fit the electric cable and plug it in. Chloe carefully pressed the switch and the lights and pump turned on. Wow it was very bright and I told the children not to look at them, guess what they did, looked at them.

There were a few instructions to read to explain the buttons on the top of the unit. The buttons turned on the lights and enables you to adjust the brightness, set the time for 16hrs a day and off for rest periods.

We were now ready to fill the system, we started by mixing the two types of fertiliser A and B together to make up a litre of solution. We then carefully poured the solution into the unit and the pump kicked in making a bubbling noise.

Because Chloe had helped to set the system up I let her choose the first two seeds to sow, she chose Chilli Peppers and Water Lily seeds. She carefully put them into the hole which was already in the centre of the Medium provided with the system.

Mason chose Sweet Peppers and Hanging Tomatoes, Alfie wanted to grow herbs and lettuce. We also added Cabbages, Broccoli, Onion and Cauliflower.

Chloe put the little domes onto each seed box, this will keep the moisture and heat inside which will help germinate the seeds quicker.

Now we need to check them everyday and make notes on what grows first, how long it takes to grow, how big it grows and any other useful information we want to document.

We will be adding to the blog and letting you know how it works, so watch this space….

childminding, Garden Classroom, rangers, Seedlings

Remembrance Poppies

Posted on 27th Jan 20226th Mar 2022 by Tracie Dowling

This week the Chloe from Rangers wanted to make a window display in honour of all the soldiers who gave their life and courage to protect out country. She has been learning about Remembrance day in school and wears her Poppy with pride.

First, Chloe helped to design a Poppy on the iPad, we then photocopied it for everyone to be able to decorate it. Sophie and Chloe made theirs first. Chloe wanted to colour hers in and paint the middle black. Sophie copied Chloe’s design.

Sophie loved her poppy so much she wanted to take it home for mummy. She also wanted to have it displayed on the window so she ended up painting one too! Isn’t it pretty!