Outdoor Learning
At Laceby Stanford Primary Academy our vision focuses on real-life learning, and we make effective and exciting links to the world, one of the ways we can do this is to take children outside the classroom into their wider school environment in order to engage them.
The use of the ‘outdoors’ helps to deliver a skills based curriculum, in which touching experiencing and ‘being amongst’ underpins the learning.
Learning outside enables a child to be immersed in hands on, practical experience and problem solve. Asking questions, working collaboratively, operating in real life and relevant projects improves understanding and engagement in all aspects of the curriculum be it maths, science, geography creative writing and the list goes on…
Please look at our Curriculum Page to keep up to date with the exciting outdoor learning that we are so proud of at Stanford Junior and Infants School.
Sunny Maths in Year 2
The Pumpkins enjoyed their hands-on maths outside in the sunshine. They had a great time exploring the world of measurement using a mix of non-standard units, centimetres and metres. They challenged themselves to draw chalk lines of various lengths and hunt for objects around the playground. They worked hard to identify items that were less than, more than or equal to exactly one meter in length.
Super Summer KS1 Reading Collaboration!
The children absolutely loved reading together outside in the shade on a lovely warm summer’s day.
‘It’s relaxing and we can enjoy stories with a partner from a different class.’
‘First I read my book to my friend and then they read their book to me.’
‘It’s fun and a good way to practise your reading and enjoy the nice weather.’
Y4 Investigating Sound
We have been investigating pitch and volume. First Miss Perrin played a high pitch sound and the children moved until they stopped hearing it, then we tried this with Miss Perrin talking as she moved away from the children. We discovered that high pitch sounds travel further than lower pitches. We then tried making large and quiet sounds with different instruments. We found out that the harder we make things vibrate the larger the sound. We then thought about why sounds get quieter the farther we are from them. We concluded that sound loses energy as it travels over distance.
A parents guide to the new National Curriculum (not Foundation/Seedlngs class). More information can be found on the Rising Stars website
🌱 Planting and Growing! 🌱
Our Foundation children are beginning an exciting new topic all about planting and growing!🌸🌻 This term, we’ll be exploring the magical journey of how plants grow from tiny seeds to blooming flowers and thriving greenery. Through hands-on outdoor learning and discovery, the children will gain a deeper understanding of what plants need to grow and how we can care for them.
Each child now has their very own plant to look after, and they’ve had so much fun designing and decorating their own unique plant pots! These little pots are not only full of creativity but also responsibility, as it’s now the children’s job to take care of their plants making sure they get enough water, sunlight, and love.🌼🌿
Enjoying the Warmer Weather
Last week Year 1 and 2 had really been enjoying the warmer weather. The children have enjoyed all sorts of outdoor activities including: model making, reading, egg & spoon balancing, playing maths games and climbing.
Year 3 & 4 - Being Artists
In art we thought about how we draw and the different parts of the body we use when we draw on a large and small scale. We then looked at how we can make 2D shapes look 3D by shading and using different colours. With the beautiful weather today we took our learning outside and tried using chalks to draw 3D shapes on the pavements and then on a larger scale on the walls.
We have grown our own produce!
Our gardeners and nurture groups have grown some fantastic produce over the summer term. Well done they look amazing!
Tending Our Vegetables
Our nature group have loved being outside this afternoon tending to the broccoli, cabbage potatoes celery and peppers. We can’t wait got them to be ready to harvest to make something delicious!
Bug Hotels
We have been exploring habitats for different mini beasts. This afternoon Mrs Druar came in to help us make bug hotels. I wonder which creatures will visit?
Y1 Fieldwork
Year 1 have been using their fieldwork skills to search the school grounds.
We are studying plant life and our challenge was to discover different kinds of plant life around the school.
Next we will draw plans of the grounds and mark where the plant life is.
Earth Day/Great British Spring Clean
To celebrate Earth Day year 3 participated in the Great British Spring Clean as part of an initiative ran by North East Lincolnshire Council. They very kindly let us borrow bag hoops and litter pickers. We walked around the perimeter of the field and playgrounds to collect as much litter as we could find. Taking part in the event linked to our PSHE topic of living in the wider community, our responsibilities and how we can look after our environment. A big thank you to Luke and Sadie for coming and supporting us with this event!
Pumpkin Class Plant Trees
Today Paul from NELC came to school to help us plant 4 new apple trees.
The project was launched by NELC to help increase the canopy cover across our borough, which is currently one of the lowest in the country.
Paul talked us through each step of planting a tree which links to our science topic of planting. We hope one day we can use the produce off these trees in our cooking club to help us towards being more sustainable.
Community Beach Clean!
A big THANK YOU to everyone who attended our beach clean this morning. This was such a positive event with lots of amazing feedback about our work. Members of the public were very complimentary about the hard work we put into collecting any litter we found. A big thank you to Ken for letting us borrow the litter picking equipment. We can't wait to update you on our ECO award and our next steps.
"A brilliant job you are doing!"
"Amazing morning 10/10"
"As a grandparent it got me up"
"Brilliantly organised"
"Thank you for all the work you are doing"
Bird Feeders
Our outdoor learning group have been recycling to make bird feeders. They used milk cartons to place bird seed in, and made them attractive by using feathers and colour. We used cross curricula skills from DT to PSHE to look at why we used milk cartons to help environment to knowing what skill we needed to use to make the bird feeders. This helped us to feed the birds during these cold months, and also draw more birds to us during our big garden bird watch.
Birdwatch
Buttercup class have been learning about British Birds this week. We went to the nature area to do some bird spotting as part of RSPB Big School Birdwatch. We completed the survey back in class. We saw wood pigeons, crows, a magpie and seagulls. We could hear other birds in the closeby bushes but they were hiding out of site. We did meet a couple of squirrels in the nature area which was very exciting.
2D Shapes
This week Year 1s have been using sticks gathered from outdoors to make different 2D shapes.
We started with triangles and went on to make squares and rectangles.
Pupil 1: I used 3 sticks to make a triangle.
Pupil 2: we needed 1 more than 3 to make a square or a rectangle
Pupil 3: Maths is great when we get to go outside.
Pupil 4: I never knew we could make shapes with sticks!
Pupil 5: We made triangles and squares.
Thank You
A big thank you to one of our governors who organised for the local beck plant pots to be donated to us. Gardening club have made sure these are watered using the watering system they have. You can find these brightening up our reception area.
Our Metal Flowers
Today we put our metal flowers up in our reception area. I think you'll agree that the children have done amazing with these. Each of the flowers have incorporated an artist's design that we look at in each of these year groups. Be sure to look out for them as you come into school via the reception!
Another big thank you to Sam from Vanel for supporting us with this project.
Being Scientists….
This week Year 1 have been studying Deciduous and Evergreen Trees. We went searching around school and found both types of tree. It was a windy day and we sat in the Nature area watching the leaves falling from the deciduous trees. We collected different leaves and took them back to class.
Because the Gardening Club have been working so hard making improvements in the wild area, we were able to use the new paths and seats to stay out of the mud. Thank you Gardening Club from all Year 1.
Pupil 1: I know that Evergreen trees stay green all year.
Pupil 2: Yes Evergreen trees never drop their leaves either.
Pupil 3: Deciduous trees have leaves that fall off.
Pupil 4: We drew Deciduous trees in the Summer with lots of green leaves and in Autumn with yellow, orange and brown leaves fallen to the floor.
Pupil 5: I loved going to the wild area and seeing the leaves falling.
Pupil 6: It was so windy the leaves blew around!
Parts of a whole
Year 1 have been learning how a whole can be partitioned into different parts. Taking 5 bean bags, we threw at the target and recorded how many landed in and out of it. We found many combinations of how the bean bags landed. Back in the classroom we drew the combinations. We had lots of fun and learnt so much about number.
Child A: ‘We did a kind of PE – Maths lesson it was great!’
Child B: ‘My group found 6 different ways of doing it.’
Child C: ‘We had 5 as a whole and then 2 different parts.’
Child D: ‘We love maths outside.’
Gardening 👨🌾
This week down at the nature area we have been busy laying bark around our plants. This will hopefully prevent weeds and act as a drainage system. A big thank you to Sam and Lauren who helped us wheelbarrow just over one tonne of bark from our carpark to our nature area!
Geographical Features
In year 1 we have been learning about human and physical geographical features. Human features are things around us that have been made by humans and physical features are things which are natural items such as the seasons, the weather, plants and coasts. We then went on a hunt around the school to see what geographical features we could find.
Planting Winter Pansies
Mrs Petyt showed us how to plant our Winter Pansies. We saw the roots that needed covering in compost and noticed the bright colours of the petals. We had to water them so they will stay alive. We took it in turns and showed good listening.
Gardening Club: Choosing Plants
Today our gardening club have been to Grimsby Garden Centre. The reason behind the visit was to purchase some herbs and plants for new our sensory walk way we are creating in our nature area. A big thank you to Grimsby Garden Centre for all their help, and our school helpers for supporting with the visit.
Gardening Club: Carrots
Gardening Club have found some of their carrots that they gave grown! One member of the group said "That's the longest carrot I've ever seen!" We wonder if you've seen a longer carrot?
Thank You!
Thank you to our wonderful volunteers for helping with maintaining our pond and nature area.
Gardening Club
A big congratulations to Gardening Club who have achieved their Level 2 Gardening Award.
Wildlife Camera
Today gardening club put up our new wildlife camera! We can't wait to see what has been recorded.
