Monday 7 December 2015

The Peedie Sea

Today the group went to The Peedie Sea to look at outdoor areas we could use and have a discussion about how we could use them. There is already a good map of the paths we can use to show where we can go and safe boundaries. We did think of some ideas for using the Peedie Sea itself but these would have to be carefully organised and we would need buoyancy aids if we were going to go near the edge to float model boats or rafts. 


The trees there are getting quite big now - some as big or bigger than us so there are lots of good activities we could do in amongst them in suitable weather. 


We do need some guidelines and rules for how to act around the areas where there are other people and dogs and traffic, and some advice for suitable kit and clothing. We need to keep thinking about 'Leave No Trace' rule and keep the PU3P message going. There are some new bins that need stickers.

Here is a short list of some of the things we thought we could use the area for:
birdwatching
tree planting
tree measuring
tree indentification
mini beast hunt
walking
jogging
measuring distance
cycling
scootering
racing models
balance bikes
skateboarding
cycling proficiency
tag
rounders races 
treasure hunt
geo-caching
sculptures in the trees
picnic
bushcraft
woodcraft
hide and seek
outdoor performances
hanging interesting facts in the trees
model creatures in the trees
canoeing
raft building
model boats and rafts
kite flying
shelter building
den building
tenting...

PHEW!

Back in school we had a quick look at the front playground and had a few ideas about where we could practice putting up the big guide tent - we need a tent 'team' who know how to do this and can help other groups with it. We also thought we need a fire pit area for the Kelly Kettle. We will speak to the playground group about this too. 


Monday 30 November 2015

Mission Explore : The Playground

"You have to imagine that there are no buildings, no fences, no water or shelter."

  • How would you survive? 
  • What would you do? 
  • What games would you play? 
  • Where would you make a fire? 
  • What would you sit on?
Today we explored the back platground as an area for practising outdoor learning skills which we can take further away from school, like to The Peedie Sea, Muddisdale and Scapa. Even in this small space we thought of a few things we could do:

Early years - we are all going on a bear hunt....
Everyone - traversing the trees at the top of the muddy slippery bank

We realised there are games we play already which could be shared and become popular with everyone - perhaps we should make a map? Look out for that on our noticeboard.

We ran out of time for making hot chocolate with the kelly kettle but we will have time next week as we start at 2pm and we are going to check out the front playground and the Peedie Sea for potential. 

A high priority is to make an equipment list and a desirable kit list for children. Perhaps we should have some spare kit - waterproofs and wellies?

Meantime we are going to gather the logs to a good place for the kelly kettle.

Monday 23 November 2015

Where can we go? What have we got? What can we do?

At our first meeting we gor to know each other a little and talked about where we can go to learn outside. We worked out there are a few places we can use:

  • the school playground
  • The Peedie Sea
  • Muddisdale
  • Wideford Hill
  • Scapa
Some of these places are too far away for the youngest children in the school to walk to so some are more suitable for P4 - 7. Next week we will start thinking about an equipment list and explore the school grounds and think about what we can do within them,