30 Days Wild in June at St Bartholomew’s Nursery

30 Days Wild is an annual campaign by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, to encourage people to complete one random act of wildness and connect with nature each day in June. Everyone can join in, at the individual, family, group, or business level. St Bartholomew’s Nursery Wildlife Watch group in Coatbridge took it the next level! They have well and truly gone wild, at home and at nursery, this June and they’re buzzing to tell you about it! Read on for their highlights of the challenge days completed at nursery.

Big Wild Breakfast and ‘feel the wild between your toes’ – 1 June

Feeling nature with bare feet © Maxine Connolly

We ALL enjoyed starting 30 Days Wild with a ‘Big Wild Breakfast’ outdoors looking at nature all around us. We spotted so many different forms of wildlife.
What better way to experience nature than to do so in bare feet? Our Wildlife Watchers rose to the very first challenge. If they weren’t sure at first, they certainly came round to enjoy the freedom of it.

‘Look up at the Clouds’ – 2 June

The Wildlife Watchers enjoyed kicking back and relaxing looking at the clouds and taking time to appreciate the vastness of the sky. What can you see when you take time to look up?

‘Find a Creepy Crawly’ – 3 June

Minibeast hunt © Maxine Connolly

Our Wildlife Watchers thoroughly enjoyed day three looking for creepy crawlies, learning to be gentle and kind to our multiple, or no-legged friends. We have noticed more Wildlife and mini-beasts in our garden this year thanks to the natural resources and planting we have done. We found worms, slugs, a centipede, beetles, bees and spiders. Needless to say our Wildlife Watchers were absolutely thrilled

Thread a Daisy Chain’ – 4 June

Daisy chain ©Maxine Connolly

The Wildlife Watchers enjoyed using their fine motor skills to pick out the daisies for our challenge. The Wildlife Watch Leaders helped the children create holes in the stem and the children concentrated really hard threading the daisy stems through. Some of our younger Wildlife watchers picked the daisies and stuck them on card to make daisy bangles.

‘ Listen for Wild Sounds’ – 7 June

The Wildlife Watchers lay down and listened carefully to the sounds outdoors. The sounds they heard were, seagulls, wind, other groups playing and other birds.

‘Snap a Blue Photo’ – 08 June

Snapping a blue photo © Maxine Connolly

Snapping blue nature photographs using iPads- we had to improvise as we had grey clouds and no blue flowers showing yet. We researched natural blue Scottish sights and displayed our pictures outdoors. The children enjoyed learning the wildflowers names, a favourite being the ‘forget me not’. They also loved ‘blue damsel fly’ and snapping a picture of the extremely rare ‘blue lobster’. Our watchers’ curiosity was inspired by the blue wildlife and nature.

‘Identify a wildflower’ – 9 June

The Wildlife Watchers found lots of buttercups and daisies for Wildflower challenge today. A buttercup fact that we looked up online is ‘a buttercup has a reflective surface’ that’s why it is so shiny when you put it under your friends chin to see if they like butter! And a daisy fact is that ‘daisies are two flowers in one’ the yellow and white part are separate flowers. An interesting fact we looked up about a Dandelion – as well as being super healthy to eat or as a drink, the name, dandelion, is a corruption of the French dent de lion meaning “lion’s tooth”, referring to the coarsely toothed leaves.

‘Read a wild book’ – 10 June

Our Wildlife Watchers enjoyed an array of wildlife and nature books, one of the books was ‘Slow Down – Bring Calm to a Busy World with 50 nature Stories’ by Rachel Williams. We explored stories about rainbows, cherry blossom trees and butterflies. The children enjoyed exploring the garden after, looking for their own nature facts and stories.

‘Picnic with the birds’ – 11 June

Picnic for the birds © Maxine Connolly

The Wildlife Watchers enjoyed creating a picnic for the birds. We created two different bird feeders. One we used lard, bird seed and pine cones, the other was pipe cleaners and Cheerios. The children used their fine motor skills to create the bird feeder. Some of the children manipulated the pipe cleaners into their own initial shape. The Wildlife Watchers decided to hang the feeders out in the nursery garden for our birds.

‘Meditate in the wild’ – 14 June

Wild Yoga © Maxine Connolly

Taking our yoga outdoors into nature, our Wildlife Watchers felt amazing after taking part in our outdoor yoga. As we bent and stretched we could here relaxing outdoor sounds and breathe in the fresh air.

‘Whistle with grass’ – 15 June

Whistling with grass had our Wildlife Watchers belly laughing, what a delight. Some of our Watch Leaders learnt a new skill with this one too. The Watchers learned to place the grass between two thumbs, or fingers and blow!

‘Create a work of art’ – 16 June

The Wildlife Watchers found natural resources around the nursery environment and collected some from outdoors. The Watchers then created some transient art with the collection. The children created a beach, a forest and a mountain.

‘Draw a wild landscape’ – 17 June

Draw a wild landscape © Maxine Connolly

Choosing to use paint and pens to create our landscape, the Wildlife Watchers demonstrated their creativity making forest, trees, beaches and cleverly adding seasonal touches to them too. It looks as though there is a world in the centre and the various seasons around it. A true masterpiece!

‘Watch a wild webcam’ – 18 June

The Wildlife Watchers were excited to watch various web cams, they got to see an osprey and chicks on the webcam!

‘Google wild facts’ – 21 June

Our Wildlife Watchers selected ‘bunny rabbits’ to google facts about. We discovered that they live in complex underground tunnels and burrows that are called a ‘Warren’. The Wildlife Watchers were keen to create pictures of rabbits in their warrens.

‘Race for a rainbow’ – 22 June

Race for a rainbow © Maxine Connolly

The Wildlife Watchers had fun casing a rainbow in our nursery environment, look at the wonderful colours they found! Noticing the sky, grass, Lupin, geranium, buttercups and and leaves.

‘Decorate with a wild mobile’ – 23 June

Our Wildlife Watchers decided to make a butterfly mobile with sticks, pens, glue, tissue paper, string and a wee bit of sparkle . The watchers then suggested we make the mobile “at the house corner door”. It looks fabulous!

‘Pick up litter’ – 24 June

Litter pick © Maxine Connolly

The Wildlife Watchers enthusiastically tidied up our outdoor environment on their last day of nursery. Well done at helping keeping our area tidy!
Our Wildlife Watchers have had a fantastic time embracing 30 Days Wild in June. At the weekends, and for the last few days as we finished up for the holidays, our Leaders sent home suggestions and some of our lovely parents and carers have sent loads of fantastic pictures of our Watchers enjoying and taking care of our natural environment. Some have visited our satellite site with family and siblings, recreated some of the challenges completed in nursery and made some of their own. This has been an exciting and wonderful way for us ALL to connect with nature. Thank you to the Wildlife Trusts for an amazing experience. The Wildlife Watchers were presented with a certificate for participating in this fantastic experience.

Maxine Connolly – Teacher and Wildlife Watch Leader at St Bartholomew’s Nursery

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Preface

30 Days Wild is an annual campaign by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, to encourage people to complete one random act of wildness and connect with nature each day in June. …

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