wanderers – Page 4 – Tracie's Treasures

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.

Garden Classroom, rangers, Seedlings, wanderers

Spring is here!

Posted on 9th Apr 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

This Easter holidays have flown by so fast. The Seedlings, Wanderers and Rangers have all been so busy in the garden and their efforts are paying off with an abundance of seedlings growing strong.

On the first shelf in our greenhouse we have Marigolds growing, we will be planting them between the tomatoes, Chillies and Cucumbers to help fight away the aphids, this is called companion planting. We do this instead of using pesticides which is better for the environment. The Wanderers are growing Pak Choi, radish, cauliflower and sweetpeas.

On the second shelf we have used toilet rolls as pots, filled them with peat-free compost and sown peas, swede, beetroot and spring onions.

The Little Seedlings helped Tracie to sow the Phlox seeds, Alfie tried so hard to pick a seed up from Tracie’s hand using his pincer grip, but the seeds were just too small. Tracie gave Alfie the packet to sprinkle over the toilet roll pots. I’m sure they will set seed soon and we will thin them out individually if over crowded.

The middle shelf has tomatoes and pansies growing well. We made sure they all have plenty of water and tomato feed to help produce strong stems.

The top shelf is bursting with Chillies, sweet peppers, chives and lavender. Jacy from the Rangers has the strongest tomato plant growing, the Bisto pot is still going strong!!

Last week, Georgia helped to sow the onion sets. This week she noticed they had grown, she asked if she could sow some more. Tracie asked Georgia to help prepare the soil for the seeds, Georgia got stuck in by raking the soil.

Jack came over and asked if he could help, Tracie gave Jack baby sweetcorn and carrots to sow. He then helped to cover the raised bed with mesh, this is because the birds keep attacking the onion sets and seeds.

wanderers

Easter Holidays with the Rangers and Wanderers

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

The Rangers and Wanderers have been pretty busy this Easter holidays. They have been out and about visiting different parks on the bus, bike, car and walking.

The weather has been different every day! Its been hot, cold, wet, windy, sleeted and snowed all in the two week break!

The older children have enjoyed the outdoors the most, they have climbed trees, made dens and been on a hunt for #liverpoolkindnessrocks

Mason and Tracie put together a wood burner so we could toast marshmallows.

The children all loved eating the warm fluffy mallows, Jacy said they tasted warm and crunchy. Jack wanted more and Emma put the ‘seedlings’ Mallows in the middle of two biscuits to make it easier for them to eat!

We have all enjoyed having Martha and Ivor come for a couple of days. They have both grown up so much and they loved seeing their old friends. Tracie has been looking after them since they were born and they are both part of our treasure family.

Martha and Ivor asked where Niamh was? We explained she has moved back to Ireland, they were upset so we sent her a photo to say hello.

Garden Classroom, rangers, Seedlings, Uncategorized, wanderers

Finding #liverpoolkindnessrocks

Posted on 1st Apr 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today we have all been on a trip to Croxteth Park Hall and joined in the ‘Liverpool Kindness Rocks’ challenge. We had to look high and low for painted rocks hidden around our parks.

Some stones have been placed with paint for you to take home and decorate yourself. Once decorated you then hide them in a different park. I wonder who will find the most, seedlings, rangers or wanderers?

Everyone said Emma would win! We were all right, she found not one but two! A lovely shiny leaf and a ‘Thank You NHS’, they were both in a tree stump.

Jacy found the next one, he remembered he had seen something a week ago when he was in the park with his mum. He didn’t go and investigate it then, but he went over to the place he thought he had seen it and it was was still there! One to the Rangers!

Georgia from the Seedlings found this beautiful ladybird rock near the playground, one to the Seedlings!

Georgia loved the shine on the ladybird and said it was really smooth and pretty.

We Left These Stones For Someone to Find

Where’s This One We Hid? Good Luck Finding it!

Rocks We Found at Walton Hall and Hid in Croxteth Park

It was soon time for lunch and we all sat next to the park and the older children went on the exercise equipment and worked up a hunger so came back and had lunch.

The Rangers loved climbing the trees and getting stuck, luckily they were able to help each other to get over and off them. They worked well together and made treehouses.

We all thought Jacy’s was the biggest and brightest of all.

Last but not least we went home and ended our day by the campfire roasting marshmallows nom nom.

rangers, Seedlings, wanderers

Messages From Niamh

Posted on 24th Mar 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

The Little Seedlings said a farewell to Niamh back in December 2020 as she was moving back home to Ireland with her mummy and daddy.

Niamh Wearing The Apron She Made With Us

Since then, we have been sending pictures and messages to each other. Niamh sent us this picture of her, wearing the apron she made in the last week with us.

The Little Seedlings sent this picture back, asking her how she was and if she had settled in her new home.

Niamh said she misses us all but she loves having mummy and daddy with her all the time.

Today we had a special message from Niamh, she was reading us her favourite book!

Poppy was very happy as it was called ‘Poppy and Sam’s Bedtime’ we are amazed how grown up Niamh has got! Talk soon, love the Little Seedlings.

rangers, Seedlings, wanderers

Comic Relief 2021

Posted on 19th Mar 202110th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

The Little Seedings made some very nice Red Nose Day biscuits. Tracie mixed the water into the icing sugar and it exploded everywhere, we all thought this was very funny!

Somebody couldn’t wait to ice and add sweets to their biscuits! The face said it all!

Tracie and Emma didnt want to miss out! Emma made a double dip stack and Tracie wanted hers plain and simple. Both were delicious.

We decorated some biscuits for the Wanderers and Rangers for when they come home from school. Let’s hope they aren’t eaten before the come!!

When the wildlife Rangers and Wanderers came home they wore their noses and ate the biscuits all up and gave a big thumbs up!

rangers, Seedlings, wanderers

Happy St Patrick’s Day Celebrations

Posted on 17th Mar 202111th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

Today we all had a lovely sunny day for our St Patrick’s Celebrations. Sophie’s mum brought in some lovely decorations and fancy dress accessories, the Little Seedlings had fun taking turns wearing them. Even Tracie and Emma had a go!

Emma designed and created these lovely hats and the Little Seedlings enjoyed painting and sticking on some green glitter. We had glitter everywhere all over the tables, our clothes, in the hall, bathroom and all over Alfie!

At one point we thought Alfie was a glittery Leprechaun! Georgia thought he was a green smurf, from the Trolls movie!

The Little Seedlings loved colouring in the masks. Tracie asked the children to choose any pen to colour the face in, but not to colour the eyes as we are cutting them out.

What’s the first part they all coloured? Yes the eyes!

Even the Wildlife Rangers enjoyed taking part before and after school.

Seedlings, wanderers

Chinese Dragons

Posted on 19th Feb 202111th Aug 2021 by Tracie Dowling

This week we have been celebrating Chinese New Year. We all decided to make dragons like the ones we see on the television and in our books.

We spent the whole day making dragons and all felt proud of them. The wanderers and wildlife rangers all took them home to show their mums and dads.

Garden Classroom, Seedlings, wanderers

Exercise in Lockdown

Posted on 18th Feb 202119th Feb 2021 by Tracie Dowling

We all made the most of our hours exercise today in Stanley Park. Jacey made everyone laugh pricking his bottom on a Yucca bush.

The children went on a treasure hunt and they found some Snowdrops, Purple Crocuses, lovely Red Dogwood and a Mugo Pinewood which looked very prickly.