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We have been setting up a new school garden with help from Mo from the RHS. We have planted beetroot, carrots, rainbow chard, spinach, potatoes, cauliflower, broccoli and lettuce.

We have been looking after our patch at Alva Glen. We saw a beautiful robin and we heard a woodpecker but could not find it anywhere!

For my John muir award I am building a wildlife Corner, so far I have made a hedgehog mansion and a boggy area for the amphibians and planting bee friendly plants around it

Last week we started to plan our John Muir Newsletter. We decided we wanted to make it fun and informative to keep all ages engaged. So as well as giving ideas about what they could be doing to help wildlife in their garden and local area, we also added some activities for kids too. We created a bug themed word search and a wildlife crossword, as well as a drawing challenge for them to create their own wild creature. We also have plans to include a jokes page and some flower inspired recipes. Its looking great so far!

Today we have not only been busy bees' but we have also been watching some very busy bee's collecting pollen. We started the day with a litter pick around our woodland area, thankfully most of our woods was litter free, but we did find a few littered areas where our fences run next to the road. We talked about how in the past litter picking has been used as some kind of punishment when you get in trouble at school. We decided it is time to 'Reclaim the Litter pick' no longer a punishment but instead a therapeutic time, finding the things that don't fit into our natures glorious picture. We decided that there is something very satisfying about making an area bee-autiful again! In the gardens Polly-tunnel we found some stripy bugs that looked like a cross between a crane fly and a wasp, after some research we think their called ichneumon a type of parasitoid wasp! In the afternoon we went back to the woods, where the blackberries are getting ready to make an appearance. The bramble flowers were a hive of activity, with bees buzzing from one bloom to the next. We spotted a few different type of bumble bee and lots of honey bees too. What a wonderful day full of new discoveries!

For our final JMA activity this year, we explored Glennifer Braes country park. There were lots of different flowers they hadn't seen before and the used their identification sheet to identify insects. There were lots of butterflies where we walked and this caused a lot of excitement! The children were excited to see sheep and cows in real life and see how big they really were. We were only able to do this from a distance due to time constraints and the animals being in fields quite far away, however the children are hoping that they can return next term and see them up close.

19.5.22 As part of our work towards The John Muir Award, P6/7 have been using a graphic novel from the Scottish Book Trust to learn about the life of John Muir. This week, they learned about his early life and his journey to North America. After reading the novel, the children role-played his life story. They enjoyed using the playground equipment in their role-plays!