Bowfell

It was lovely to see so many little ones (and their grown ups too!) enjoying our final Toddler Taster session of the academic year this morning. The drizzle and clouds didn’t spoil our Summer Fun themed morning where children enjoyed games of hook a duck, blowing bubbles, painting rainbow bread, making sand dough pictures and playing in our sensory ice cream tuff tray – just to name a few of the activities we had on offer.

Reception and Year One enjoyed their STEM day last Thursday when Fran from C-STEM came to visit with his huge tubs of Lego! The children had the opportunity to have a rummage through the boxes and discovered some specialist pieces of Lego which aren’t normally found in the widely available sets. Fran challenged the children to build the tallest tower that they could with the Lego, they had to remember to try and make sure their towers were strong as well as tall! After looking at everyone’s creation they then had to build a bridge connecting the towers to each other. The final challenge of the morning was creating space houses and rockets. The children were thoroughly engrossed in their activities which promoted team work, problem- solving and critical thinking skills. Many thanks go to FOLS for kindly funding this experience for the children.

We were extremely proud of Bowfell’s hard work last half term in producing a scarecrow and planting trolley for competitions at Countryfest which was held last weekend.

Their Rapunzel scarecrow for this year’s fairy tale theme was on display in the Sew Crafty tent and received a ‘highly commended’ award.

They also entered for the first time the ‘thriving trolleys’ competition which involved a planting display on the theme of health and happiness in a supermarket trolley! Many thanks to Pam Martin for her tremendous help, in not only designing the trolley, but also giving up her time to help the children plant flowers, vegetables and herbs from her garden.

It was lovely to see the children’s efforts on display last weekend and they represented the school so well.

As part of Bowfell’s learning around World Environment Day yesterday, Reception and Year One learnt about the decline of hedgehogs. They found out about their habitat and what they like to eat. In an attempt to help, the children made hedgehog homes at the back of Bowfell’s outdoor area. They used plastic boxes, mud, leaves, twigs, stones and straw. They certainly look inviting and cosy, we hope for some inhabitants soon!

Thank you to all those who joined us this morning for our Gardening Toddler Taster session. It was lovely to see so many families enjoying the activities we had on offer, which included making flower cakes in the mud kitchen, sensory flower soup play and planting a begonia to take home. Our sand pit and water wall were also a huge hit. We are already looking forward to our final session of the year in July- Summer Fun! Please join us if you can.

Bowfell spent yesterday afternoon completing a set of challenges as part of their ‘Wild Wednesday’ learning. They worked in teams and were provided with a description of an animal. Each animal was hidden outside in different places for the children to find. The next task was to build a shelter for their animal. The children spent a long time engrossed in the activity, communicating their ideas, evaluating and changing their approaches as necessary, problem-solving and working as a team! They also spent time preparing our entry for the scarecrow competition we are entering at Countryfest in a few weeks time.