Weekend Away Camping In Wales
Category: Uncategorized
Our Summer Garden Flowers Gallery
The King and Queen’s Coronation
This week we have been very busy getting ready to celebrate the King and Queen’s Coronation.
before school the wonderers and Rangers joined in and made some crafts before school. They had a non school uniform day to celebrate, so Tracie painted flags on their hands and faces and made Coronation dress up for them to wear.
We then made lots off different crafts to decorate the room. The children loved colouring in the felt Royal jewels and family.
Phyllis knitted an amazing crown for everyone, the children all looked so cute wearing it.
The children asked if they could make their own crown, they used card, paint, pens and stickers to make bright shiny crowns just like the king and Queen will be wearing.
The babies didn’t miss out, they took part in activities involving mark making, practising their fine manipulative skills, messy and sensory play.
The younger children asked if they could have their face painted like the big kids. They were all so good standing still while Tracie painted the flags.
We had so much fun chatting away learning new words, while making the crafts. We learnt facts about the royal family, looked at pictures of castles and looked on the internet at the Crown Jewels.
We enjoyed a lovely tea party we invited Becky and her mindee’s to join us with the party. We wore our crowns, made cakes, had sausage rolls, sandwiches and corn snacks. George said he loved the cakes the best, grace, Elsie, Fifi and Jack loved wearing the crowns and taking part in the activities. Charlotte loved eating everything she could get her hands on and Ben made a lovely mess while enjoying a cup cake.
After the party we made pictures using foam stickers of the Royal family, corgis, London icons and Royal buildings. We ended the day singing songs and dancing to music which was Royal themed.
Look Who’s Collecting Nectar In Our Garden
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.
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.
Seedling Garlic Growing
In our ‘Oddbox’ our weekly wonky vegetable box we had three garlic bulbs. We decided we didn’t need all three so we cut the top off to see if it would grow.
Grace placed it on a saucer of water and this it what happened!
We are going to have an abundance of home grown garlic to last us all year!!
Hydroponics Update
Back in January the Wonderers and Rangers started a Hydroponic experiment to see how we could grow our fruit and vegetables without using soil.
We started with three main units, 2 small table top appliances one which had built in lights and a pump system and another, a still water system with lights built in. Tracie was then very lucky to have had a third brought for a present, a vertical pump system which needed grow lights added.
The built in pump systems work by pumping water constantly around the root system moving nutrients (added to the water) and providing air flow. We found these seeds germinated quickest out of the 3 systems used. We kept a constant eye on the water levels and nutrient PH.
We found once the plants had grown their second true leaves they started to look like they were wilting. The children came to the conclusion that the lights were scorching them so we raised the lights to see if there would be any improvement.
The root system was amazing, Alfie (one of our seedlings) described them as white wiggly worms. The problem was we they were filling up the units so we decided to trim them back a little to give them room to grow. We found this made the plants less stable and they toppled over.
Chloe and Mason researched using the ipad about hydroponics and found yet another system. it was much bigger and they thought it would provide the roots more space.
We had fun building the unit together, we had to buy even more lights to go around the systems which was a bit pricey. This is essential as they provide the artificial daylight to enhance photosynthesis that plants need to enable them with added nutrients to grow big and strong.
I asked the children if they had thought about ways we can store all the crops once grow. We discussed having to stagger growing, freezing and giving their parents some to take home.
Our plant are thriving better in the bigger system. However they are getting so big again they are starting to topple over. Tracie moved one tomato plant into its own ‘homemade’ system where we add tomato feed and we are waiting to see if it helps.
We will keep you up to dates later in the year to see how it all works.
Daffodils in our Park and Garden
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.
Happy 1st Birthday Elliott
Today we went to Amsleys the local play centre to celebrate Elliott’s First birthday.
The children loved the ball pool and slides the best. Think Debbie enjoyed it the most, it definitely sounded like it with the big ‘Weeee’ she screamed on the way down!
George was amazing on the climbing wall, he went straight to the top and loved jumping off scaring me!
Off all the toys and equipment the centre had and Elliott played with the TV we have back at ours.
Elsie grew in confidence going up and down the steps and made it to the top on her own. Well done Elsie and Happy Birthday Elliott xx
Spring Additions To Our Kitchen Garden
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.
We Are Learning About Hydroponics
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….
Tracie's Treasures 