BWJS Latest News

All children and staff in our school are very excited by developments in the bird box over the last week.  The blue tit had been busy for over a week building her nest.  Then last Friday she laid her first egg and every day since then she has been laying an egg.  We now have an amazing seven eggs in the nest which she is now sitting on most of the time.  Mr Blue tit is constantly bringing her grubs and many of the children have watched in amazement as he feeds them to her.  We are so fortunate to have the camera in the box for all the children to witness such a close look at nature.

We now eagerly await the arrival of the chicks and, of course, we will keep you updated with their progress.

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At BWJS, we are extremely lucky to have such a fantastic group of people running FOBS, who regularly purchase things for our school.

The Great Plant Hunt made a suggestion of purchasing a bird box with camera to the Young Governors. They passed on this suggestion to FOBS who quickly agreed to buy one and, within a couple of weeks, the bird box and camera had arrived in school.

Mr Newton kindly took on the task of putting it all together, i.e. getting the camera securely attached inside the box, finding enough extension cable, putting the box up, producing a TV and making the connection from bird box to TV.  The TV is situated in the library next to the window.

We now have a fully working camera in our bird box and we patiently await the arrival of our first birds ready for nesting.

Thank you to all of FOBS for kindly purchasing the box and camera and grateful thanks to our very special Mr Newton for all your hard work. It is very much appreciated and every time the children visit the library they can check any progress.

(Report by Mrs Mars)

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Great Plant Hunt members started the RSPB birdwatch at lunchtime on Monday 16^th January. 30 excited children walked quietly around the school field with clipboards and surveys and recorded all the birds they saw. The children recorded 35  sightings and these results were sent to the RSPB. This will be carried on through out the week every lunchtime. We did RSPB Birdwatch in 2011 and the population has grown immensely. The children were set the task to bring in birdseed.  Thank you to Mrs Harris and Mrs Brown for bringing in seed and fat balls, which was useful, as otherwise we wouldn’t be able to attract the birds. We hope we will be very successful in the bird watch program.

(Report by Abbie, Annabel and Mrs Mars)

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Great Plant Hunt members will be taking part in the RSPB Big Schools’ Birdwatch next term.

It will take place from 16^th -20^th January and we will follow the same programme as last year.  GPH members will meet every lunchtime and walk around the school grounds noting down any birds they see and then our daily results will be forwarded to the RSPB.  Please visit www.rspb.org.uk/schoolswatch for further information.

Thank you to all the children in Great Plant Hunt and Worldclass who have all been very dedicated.  Happy Christmas to you all.

(Report by Mrs Mars)

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Great Plant Hunt started this term with 45 very enthusiastic members keen to take part in our lunchtime club.

Our first session involved meeting for lunch in the group room before going out onto the school playing field to make bookmarks.  To do this the children had to stick as many Autumnal things they could find onto card.  A display with all the bookmarks can be seen in the Group room.

We also took the time to check on the animal habitats that the children had made last term and it was interesting to see that ants, beetles, woodlouse and ladybirds had found new homes!

(Report by Mrs Mars)

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Great Plant Hunt was attended by 41 children today and we had the choice of rebuilding our animal shelters, making bookmarks using leaves stuck on card or drawing.  Most members did animal shelters and leaf sticking cards (no one did drawing.)  ”It was great fun” said Katie-Ellen. We did this activity at the bottom of the field by collecting leaves, sticks and other materials. The Great Plant Hunt was so much fun.  The leaf bookmarks that people made were of different shades of green which we found on our field. When it was near the end of GPH we had a photograph taken of all of the members.

(Report by Dylan, Chloe and Abbie)

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Great Plant Hunt started a week early due to demand and enthusiasm from the members of our lunchtime club. 20 children attended and took part in a Scavenger Hunt. This involved finding “15 treasures” around the school field.  They had to find the following:- They love me, they love me not daisy, green hazelnuts, “what time is it”? dandelion clock, a leaf munched by a caterpillar, an untidily eaten cone (squirrel), a neatly nibbled cone (mouse), colourful wing or tail feather, white fluffy feather, a buttercup butter tester, petals with spots or stripes, scented petals, blackberry flowers, four leaf clover, flower bud cases and 5 different grasses.  Mrs Mars awarded 4 team merits to 15 finds, 3 team merits for 10 finds, 2 team merits for 8 finds and 1 team merit for 5 finds. Surprisingly, most of the children found more than 12! Well done to all the children who took part.

(Report by Mrs Mars)

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Great Plant Hunt revisited their animal shelters they made last week during their meeting at lunchtime today. We were all amazed at the different wildlife we saw. Some insects had already inhabited our shelters. We observed ladybirds, slugs, woodlouse, hedgehogs and ants. We spent our time rebuilding and making our shelters bigger!! We all were so thrilled at what we had created that we asked Mr Campbell to take a look and he was extremely pleased with us. We all had lots of fun building the shelters! We used lots of leaves, sticks, dried grass and tons of twigs. After the Easter holidays we will do some tree rubbing, a mini beast hunt and a ladybird survey.  Pond dipping was a favourite thing to do and this term and hopefully we will be doing it again.

(Report by Abbie, Dylan, Jamie and Matthew)

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Despite the horrible weather 28 Great Plant Hunters put on their coats and trekked to the bottom of the field to collect leaves, twigs and other natural woodland materials off the ground to make animal shelters. We split into groups of 5 or 6.

We made animal shelters for hedgehogs, badgers, woodlouse, ladybirds and ants. Unfortunately, a down pour started so we had to scurry back inside but we were on the way back anyway. Once everyone was back in we cleaned our shoes. Then we all said this was the best Great Plant Hunt EVER!

(Report by Ellen, Jenny and Abbie)

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In Great Plant Hunt this week we had the choice of sketching the school, identifying various buds on trees or going on a texture trail.

For the texture trail we had to find and touch – soggy decomposing leaves, lacy skeleton leaves, silky flower petals, flexible grasses, rough tree roots, furry moss, rigid bark, brittle twigs, waxy evergreen leaves and sticky horse chestnut buds.

The trees we identified by their buds were Ash, Birch, Alder, Elder, Hazel, Beech, Horse Chestnut, Rowan, Oak, Hawthorn and Dog Rose.

We had a great time.  Next week we are making animals shelters at the bottom of the school field.

(Report by Jamie and Kieran)

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