Planting an Oak Tree

Livvy very kindly donated us an oak tree for our garden that she had grown at home with her grandad.

Garden Gang - Furnishing the Bug Hotel

We have veggies!

 Look! A huge pumpkin and marrow have appeared in the Year 5 veggie patch. Hurrah!

(Excuse the rubbish photography)! 

Garden Gang Monster Weeding Session

A good sort out was needed after the summer!

The musk mallow in the bug hotel is looking beautiful...

Garden Gang - getting rid of bindweed!

Horrible bindweed is growing all over our lovely raised beds.  Garden Gang did a great job in trying to get rid of it today, well done everyone!

Shield Bugs!

Look at this shield bug that gardening club found exploring our garden.   It has really sharp mouth parts which it uses to suck sap from plants.  It's proper name is pentatomoidea! 

Look at this beautiful musk mallow...

...peeking out from inside the bug hotel.  These are growing wild and there seem to be more every day.

Garden Gang - Harvesting Herbs

Today we picked some of the lovely herbs in our garden, Rosemary, Thyme, Lemon Balm and Chives.  (More about these coming soon).  Year 3 planted these back in September so they all had a little bag to take home.

Poppies!

This flower is currently looking gorgeous in our garden!   We think it's called a Frilly Poppy, what a great name!

There are lots of different types of poppy.  The rarest and toughest is called the Arctic poppy, I expect you can guess where that grows!
Read all about it here: Arctic Poppies

Year 2 and the Water Cycle

In Walnut Class, we have been learning about the water cycle.  This is the video we have been watching to help our learning

The Water Cycle

We are posting this video in our lesson! :)

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Year 2 were in charge of watering the school garden last week so we started to think about where the water comes from and where it goes.  Here we are making our own water cycles.

The Eco-Friendly World Cup

Did you know, there is loads of eco-friendly stuff going on in Brazil at the moment.  The Arena da Amazonia,  (where England played their first game), collects rainwater in the basket weave design  and then reuses it in the water sprinklers and toilets! It's right on the edge of the rainforest so there is plenty of rain to be collected.

A lot of the stadiums use solar panels, some of these are even providing solar power to the nearby houses!  Can you see the solar panels on the roof?  This is the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte.  Brazil beat Chile here yesterday and one of the semi-finals will be here too. 

    

The designers have tried to make seating from recycled materials too and the people who work in the stadiums have had special training on recycling. 

Maths in the Garden!

Year 1 have been practising counting in fives so they made these beautiful flowers to help them.  Each one has five petals and are made from unwanted bits and bobs - old yogurt pots, cardboard boxes, CDs and old chopping boards from Mrs Turner's kitchen!

Garden Gang - New Plants!

Today we planted some begonias and chrysanthemums to replace the weeds we pulled out last week!  We watered them in to help them grow.

What it's all about...

Garden Gang - Weeding and building a compost bin (well, trying to!)

It's Our World Art Project

A new nationwide Art project launched at Paddington Station today called It's Our World.  It's all about promoting sustainability through artwork.  Look out for Shaftesbury Primary School's contribution over the next few weeks.  

Learn more about the project here:

.http://itisourworld.org/about/

http://www.bitc.org.uk/news-events/news/its-our-world-art-project-launches-un-world-environment-day

Garden Gang - Easy Bird Feeders and Watering Cans

Key Stage 1 Garden Gang had great fun this lunchtime!  We made easy bird feeders from peanut butter on toast! (We know it's not the best time of year to feed the birds but we had lots of fun doing it)!

We also had a go at making storage for our new watering cans.  We really hope it hasn't fallen over by the morning!

The 'Garden That We Built' is looking fantastic at the moment!