This term some Year 1 children, and teachers, are exploring all the possibilities of outside learning along with Joe Pearson. This is a wonderful opportunity for the children to experience different ways of learning outside of the classroom and get to grips with the outside world.

On Thursday this week some children from 1JB, along with other Year 1 children took a trip to the local Vicarage gardens to explore the sounds and sights of nature and to learn how to make fire safely. The children had a wonderful time and were able to take part in a wide range of valuable sensory learning experiences. The focus of the day was for the children to use these direct experiences to describe to the adults how things felt, sounded and smelt.

On arriving, the first thing the children did was spot squirrels looking for food for the winter. They only managed to see one, but he was so busy looking for food that he didn't mind the children watching him work. After this we found a large muddy puddle and jumped right in! The children loved the way it "squelched", "bubbled" and was "slippery like ice" and enjoyed describing these things to the grown ups.

After this, the children searched for kindling to use for fire lighting. During this they discovered a tree where the twigs smelt very strange indeed! They described them as smelling of "tooth paste" and "like the prettiest smell for a tree...like nice perfume. It must be a magic tree". Matty decided that "if we can get enough, we can have a shop of it for people".

Then we began to think about and begin to light our own fires. Before doing this we looked at how to do it safely and all learnt the 'respect position', so that we could rest near a fire but not risk falling and getting burnt. The children were great at learning how to do this and could explain how to do it to Mr Budge, who was finding it a little more difficult. Once we knew we were all safe the children lit their own fires and used different found materials to keep them going. As a reward for their safe fire skills, the children then got to roast and eat marshmallows. Lucy thought these were "like tasty hot clouds".