June 2012
All is growing at Herringthorpe. The soggy weather has been great for the plants, so the wildlife area is looking decidedly verdant! Jim ( www.greenerplaces.co.uk ) has put in the aquatic plants in the pond, which has given all the tadpoles (squillions of them) somewhere to hide. We've been doing a bit of pond dipping with year 5 too, and the school wildlife rangers group is officially up and running. Well done to all the children who have been chosen, and who helped put the habitat cubes in the pond dipping shelter. 
There's a pond dipping shelter and weather station now by the wildlife area. This was designed earlier in the year by Y5 children. Some good maths done in designing a hexagonal structure- even more in making it!
next to the shelter is a weather station. A digital weather monitoring station has been installed which sends a feed to the school, telling the children about temperature, humidity, rainfall, UV levels, wind direction and speed and even the temperature of the pond. Loads of maths there then. Children have also been designing a set of 60 images to be stuck onto 60 rotating panels. the images will have a word connected to weather, and an image (hot, dry sunny, clammy, wet, cold etc). Children will then be able to select a word that fits the weather of that particular day. This will act as a stimulus for literacy, helping children choose and use words for creative writing. The panels have been done but the stickers are still being manufactured.

Its great to see the space being used now. I cant believe the pond liner has only been in a year. In a pond dipping session the other week, children found (deep breath!); tadpoles, froglets, lesser and greater water boat men, diving beetles and their larvae, whirligig beetles, pondskaters, water daphnae, water lice, pond snails, ramshorn snails, dragonflies, damselflies and that's not to mention other insects in the grass and minibeast town hall.

I have also been making this for Tranmoor Primary in Doncaster. They wanted a water wall for their Reception yard. We decided I would make a basic structure from timber and recycled plastic lumber from www.kedel.co.uk . A series of brackets have been made that slot into the main structure. these can be moved around, and have a variety of sizes of holes cut into them. This means a variety of pipes and gutters can be fitted by the children. Holes have been positioned in the wall to encourage to work together and communicate- to play collaboratively.It s fantastic when you have an idea in your head of how something will be used, and the children use it in a completely different way! Ill be back at the school later in the year to see what developments can be made.

May 2012.

A new month, a new project- same weather! This one is a learning structure for Phillimore Primary in Sheffield. The children all took part in some design sessions, and made some big cardboard models. Parents ans pupils came in to vote on the ideas they liked best. These were then amalgamated into a finished design. This one is a robot head. Its got lots of drawers to put things in for children to discover when they come outside. children can also go inside and pretend to be the robot talking. The theme of the work is about stimulating communication. A lot of the things in the structure rely upon children working together- pipes to talk down and listen, hatches to send items in and out of. 

April 2012.
23 degrees last week in Rotherham. been working in Sheffield this week- 2 degrees in the snow!
started work at Southey Green learning community with Jim of Greener Places www.greenerplaces.co.uk

Their wildlife quadrangle garden was in need of a little tlc, so Jim and I set about putting in new paths, a lawn, a dipping platform and some new planting. The snag was everything that went in had to go up a ramp, through the school and into the garden. So between us, we shifted 20 tons of red shale (for the path) 2 tons of slate (next to the pond) 4 tons of gravel (planting areas) and a ton of top soil (under the turf)... of yeah, plus all the turf and bark chip, plants and dipping platform- all by wheel barrow. And we filled an 8 ton skip of rubbish we removed. Anyway, after 8 days its starting to look pretty good. the next step now is to do some design work with pupils and staff to develop benches, a raised bed and a lookout platform/ bird hide ( and to put that half a stone back on I lost barrowing all that stuff!).

This week I have mostly been building the bird hide at Herringthorpe Junior school. With plenty of help from the Y4s, all the cedar shingles were nailed on by Thursday. We also had a chance to rummage in the pond. Even though it's only been full of water since November, we found tadpoles (thousands!) water boatmen, whirligig beetles, diving beetle larvae and bloodworms. These are wooden tiles imported from Canada, which are nailed on to the frame. I have used black recycled plastic to create the rest of the frame and the windows. These are at different heights to cater for the different age groups in the school. I've built a letterbox into the door, so children can write letters to the birds and animals, and I've attached a periscope so the meadow roof can be viewed from inside. A quiet weekend to recover from sun burn (in March!) before getting stuck into a Wildlife area at Southey Green Learning Community in Sheffield.

Busy at my workspace in Swinton. I'm making a bird hide for Herringthorpe Junior school in Rotherham. Y3/4 children helped design a hide for their wildlife garden. It will have a wild flower meadow on the roof, with a periscope to see the flowers and plants above your head! As you can see I'm making the windows at the moment. They're made from recycled plastic lumber- brilliant stuff- rot proof and really strong. Jim and I made the pond dipping platform from the same stuff last year.
If it looks a little draughty that's because its not finished! It will all be clad in cedar shingles- wooden tiles. They will be nailed on to the horizontal timbers you can see. Ill do that when I take it all to the school next week. At the moment its all slotted together so I can dismantle it.

March 2012.

Went back to St Augustines school in Worksop. 2 lovely mild days (the ladybirds thought so!) to do some tree and hedge planting with the children. 25 trees planted and over 100 hedgerow whips- all native species. managed to fill the pond too- we had the tap running 2 days to fill it!