Nature Club
Nature club is an after school club which is currently open to KS2. The idea behind the club is for the children to learn about wildlife, nature and conservation through a variety of indoor and outdoor activities.
We have had a busy term in nature club and have spent a lot of time helping out the gardeners as there has been a lot to do in the raised beds.
We have also now got a hedgehog house which we have hidden in the environmental area.
A few weeks ago we went exploring around the school site to see what other habitats we could find and discovered a huge pile of pine cones to the side of the field. We collected up 3 wheelbarrows full and spent last week turning them into bird feeders which we have hung up all around the school. We are planning on selling some of these at the summer fair.
Each term we have a different focus for our activities. In the autumn term we learnt about hibernation and made hibernation boxes for frogs and toads. Some of the children also designed posters warning others about the dangers posed to hedgehogs hibernating in bonfire piles during Guy Fawkes Night.
As the temperatures dropped this winter the club made bird seed cakes and ensured that there was an adequate supply of bird seed in all of our environmental area feeders. We also used this as an opportunity to pick litter from the school grounds as the vegetation died back over the winter.
At the start of the spring term we focused on bird identification and used our bird hide to watch birds and find and identify them in our ID guides. The nature club also keep a record of all of the different animals and birds they spot in their notebooks.
During the summer term the nature club have taken part in some surveying which will form part of a national database of results. The club have taken part in a banded snail survey which is investigating the relationship between different colours of snail in relationship to environmental factors and the painted lady butterfly survey where we have recorded any painted lady sightings we have made. Later this term they will also be taking part in The Great Plant Hunt which has been set up by Kew gardens. We will be surveying the different plants in the school grounds.
The nature club also enjoyed making butterfly feeders this term which we will hang up around the school grounds.
