Tuesday 8 March – We went outside armed with notebooks, in search of signs of Spring.

The sky was blue, the sun was out, and there were some fluffy white clouds floating by.

First of all, our Spring Walk took us around the grassy area at the back of the school. We found some daffodils growing near the horse chestnut tree and some daisies in between the blades of grass. Sketches were made and then we moved on. Near the car park we spotted some fungi growing on the bark of a tree and more sketching was made.

One of the boys found a glittery pompom and a piece of a gold Christmas decoration, but we decided that they didn’t warrant an inclusion in the notebooks.

The bark of a silver birch tree was peeling off and we stopped to feel the texture of it. Everyone agreed that it was definitely like paper. We took a sample of it back to class.

I drew the children’s attention to the sticky, gluey buds on the giant horse chestnut trees at the entrance of the car park. Higher up, some buds were just starting to open and a tiny glimpse of green was visible.

Next we looked at our crab apple tree. In Autumn last year it had produced small apples which the birds loved to eat, and now its buds were closed tight. An array of heather was growing close-by and we took some photographs for our collection.

We noticed different cloud formations in the sky, and I took several photographs, although the quality wasn’t great. We had already downloaded Cloud Finders, and I wanted the children to see if they could recognise/name any of them when we went back to class.

What we did notice was a lot of MOSS. It was growing everywhere………on tree roots, on the walls and curbs of the car park, and we found a lovely moss pattern on the paving stones too.

It was time to go back to the classroom and have a plenary before break. Everyone had filled the page of their notebook with great observations and sketches. We had lots in store to tell Vanya about our Discovery Walk for our forthcoming Virtual session.