They were really reduced...

A post-swimming trip to our local garden centre resulting in finding a couple of bargains...

Tree Spirits

Tree Spirits with Year 4

I loved making Tree Spirits with my Year 4 class - this was before I had had my initial week's training. It was great to share them through our class blog.

Sharing the vision

Attending the first aid training gave Becky and I time to refocus our plans and think about the timescales involved. Today was the day we had arranged to share our plans with our headteacher.

To immerse her fully, we decided to start by taking her down to our propsed site. Wellies on and we were off. Being winter there were no leaves on trees enabling us to have better visibility of the site. We shared the idea of where our fire circle would be and how we envisaged the area having a wilder look, where the mowers wouldn't have to come round.

Health and Safety and vandals were top of her list of concerns, especially around the idea of having fires. We discussed not removing fallen branches and leaving them where they fell - to provide materials for children to explore. Longer term, we discussed creating an open structure for an outdoor classroom.

Back inside we went through our proposal and explained the different phases we would have where we would be working with different groups of children at different times.

In relation to funding, she asked if we would be willing to present to the Parent and Teachers Association, who she was confident would provide the bulk of the funding for equipement.

All in all she was in favour of our plans.

Relief.