LOTC Welcome

Welcome to our Learning Outside the Classroom pages
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Please click on the classes to view an insight to our learning outside the classroom for 2024-25
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LOTC Policy

NURSERY
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November 2024
‍Nursery have been exploring the natural world as part of our science learning. We have been looking for bugs that like the wet autumn weather and thinking about where they live. We used our magnifying glasses to look closely at the shapes and patterns on the slugs, snails, worms and woodlice that we found.

October 2024
‍We have had a fun half term at Forest School. We have been onscavenger hunts, collected apples then made apple crumble, made autumn leafcrowns and have been on a muddy autumn walk. This week we had a campfire. Thechildren learnt how to stay safe when close to the fire. Then they helped tobuild the fire with tinder and kindling. Once it was started we took turns totoast a marshmallow and we sang campfire songs.

September 2024
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‍Nursery have had an exciting start to the year in our Forest School area. After becoming familiar with the Forest School/LOtC expectations and exploring the environment, we have acted out some of our favourite stories. We found Gruffalo footprints and went looking for him in the woods. We also went on a bear hunt and had to go through long, wavy grass, through the deep, cold river (puddle) and in the thick, oozy mud. We also found a selection of beautiful leaves and did some leaf painting with them.

We have now moved onto our topic on autumn starting with an autumn walk and finding lots of autumn treasures.

RECEPTION
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November 2024
In November, Reception children have been learning about various celebrations. They created a poppy wreath to mark Remembrance Day and diya lights while learning about Diwali. They laid the wreath in the prayer garden, lit a candle and observed a minute of silence. For Diwali, after reading the story of Rama and Sita, children arranged and lit their diya lights in the forest school area.

October 2024
‍In October, Reception children enjoyed their outdoor PE lessons and observing changes in nature as the autumn approaches. We went on a sensory walk and created leaf artwork. We felt lucky to benefit from lovely weather every Friday in October!

September 2024
‍Reception class have been exploring the outdoor area while getting used to the rules for LOtC. We have been making use of sunny days to take our Art, Geography and science lessons outside using our senses, spotting the signs of approaching autumn and capturing our experiences in our artwork..

YEAR 1
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September 2024
‍In Year 1 our outdoor learning has focused on our geography topic – ‘ what is it like here?’ We have been following and creating maps. We have been looking at aerial views of the school and the grounds, finding features and drawing our own maps both by ourselves and within groups.

YEAR 2

November 2024
‍Year 2 had a lot of different Learning Outside the Classroom opportunities this November. We started off with celebrating Remembrance Day by creating a special prayer and gathering in our Prayer Garden. The beautiful but cold weather let us enjoy making the bark and leaf rubbings in the Outdoor Learning Area which we could also explore later to look for a Sneezy Dragon! The dragon left a lot of snotty rubble which inspired us to create our own story trains to create possible continuations to this story. We also went outside in search of the minibeasts for our Science lesson..

October 2024
In October the weather was really nice so we had lots ofgreat Learning Outside the Classroom lessons in Year 2. We started off withsome number comparison using natural materials, we did some bark and leafrubbings and finished off with our favourite Autumn Scavenger Hunt and AutumnLeaves Hunt.

September 2024
‍In our Learning Outside the classroom in Year 2 we have been very busy this September. The weather was beautiful so we had an opportunity to look for and observe little creatures living in our Forest School area. We were carefully exploring different habitats like a huge bug hotel, woodland, our lovely pond and even the raised beds which we grow some vegetables in! We could spot plenty of different kinds of spiders, some lovely snails, butterflies and a few birds who were singing beautifully hidden in the trees. We also explored the area in search of objects we could later use in our Science lessons as we are learning about Habitats this half term. We found things which were alive, things that used to be alive and things that have never been alive. We collected various items like twigs, rocks, feathers and even mushrooms and some plastic rubbish. During our latest session, using the power of good teamwork we made some autumn tree art using only natural seasonal objects. We had so much fun!

YEAR 3
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November 2024
‍We have had a very exciting month in Year 3 in the outdoor learning area. We began the month with a leaf sorting activity as we were amazed at how many leaves were covering the ground! We were allowed to sort them however we liked but each group decided to organise them the same – by colour! There were brown, green, orange, red and yellow leaves of all different sizes! We have also been busy creating nature portraits. This was lots of fun as we could only use natural materials found on the ground. We then played a game of guess who back in the classroom with the photos!

October 2024
We have been very busy in Year 3 in LOTC this month. We took our English learning outside and went on a nature walk to the outdoor learning area. The children were encouraged to use their senses and record what they could see, hear and feel outside. We were very lucky it was a lovely day! We used our fabulous words and phrases to go on and write Autumn themed free verse poems.

September 2024
‍We have been very busy in Year 3 in LOTC this month. The children have taken their RE learning outdoors whilst the weather has been nice. They were exploring a painting of The Holy Family – ‘The Millais Carpenter’, where they needed to recreate the scene and explore what each person within the family might be thinking and saying to one another. The children then performed a freeze frame to the rest of the group. It was a great way to talk about families, and why they are so special. We have also had a visit from an Egyptian Workshop this month for our History topic. The children spent the day around the school grounds ‘hunting’, making things, having a feast. It was a fantastic day spent outside the classroom learning in a hands on way.

YEAR 4
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28th November 2024
‍In History we have been investigating why the Roman army was so effective. Today we did some army training and practised battle formations including the tortoise and the wedge.

21st November 2024
‍We designed and created Roman shields using things that we found in the outdoor area.

14th November 2024
‍We used maths key words and the things in the outdoor classroom to create maths problems which we challenged others to solve..

7th November 2024
‍We learnt about how energy is transferred in a circuit from a battery charge, to light a bulb.

October 2024
‍Science Outdoor learning
We learnt about the food chain that includes the snow hare and lynx by being a snow hare and being prey or a lynx and being a predator we also investigated how changing numbers of prey or predators affected the other.

YEAR 5
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October 2024
Year 5 have enjoyed doing some close observational drawing and sketching in the outside area. We focused on scale and shading. We also used our senses to write descriptive sentences about the school grounds.

September 2024
‍Year 5 enjoyed following instructions to make paper aeroplanes. They had to work together with a partner to read and follow the instructions and then we tested out how far their aeroplanes could fly! We took some maths learning outside and children had to create calculations using natural objects. For example a leaf equals 7 and a stone 10. Children enjoyed experimenting with different strategies for making target numbers.