Birds of the Day - Dunnock and Greenfinch

Birds spotted in our wildlife garden today were:

1 Robin
1 Blue Tit
1 Blackbird
2 Pigeons
1 Wren
1 Great Tit
1 Coal Tit
1 Chaffinch
1 Goldfinch

and chosen as the best birds of the day were a poor little dunnock who got chased by the bossy robin and my own favourite - a pair of greenfinches.

Until next time

Mrs Longmoor

It's a Waxwing Winter @ Parklands

We had a really special treat this week at school when a flock of around 50 waxwings decided to visit our school to eat some of the red berries on our trees. These are a rare bird from Scandinavia that sometimes winters in this country. These birds were in the trees outside Class 6 so a massive thank you to Mrs Kilarski for interrupting her maths lesson to let her class have a look at these beautiful birds. Quite rightly - Waxwing was our Bird of the Day!

As if that wasn't enough, birdwatching club in the wildlife garden also recorded these birds on our feeders:
6 chaffinches
1 coal tit
1 great tit
1 robin
1 blue tit
1 pigeon
1 goldfinch

Let me know if you see any Waxwings around

Mrs Longmoor

Parklands wins 2 gardening prizes

Parklands has done very well and won two prizes for our gardens - 2nd best school garden and 2nd tallest sunflower - here are the certificates we were awarded. We should be very proud of ourselves!

Reuse and help birds!

Have a look at this brilliant idea by Mrs Nassau - reuse a plastic bottle and some wooden spoons and make a lovely bird feeder!

Switch Off Fortnight

It is now Switch Off Fortnight which is a time when we really focus on saving electricity by switching off any lights and appliances not in use - and it saves money as well as the environment!

BOTD - Goldfinches and a Goldcrest

Plenty of lovely birds in our wildlife garden today. These are what the children spotted:

A dunnock
Several blackbirds
Lots of wood pigeons
2 blue tits
1 Robin
1 Wren
Lots of crows flying over

but best of the day were 2 goldfinches who visited our sunflower hearts and a brand new bird for our garden - A Goldcrest!

This is the smallest bird we get in the UK - can you see his bright yellow stripe on his head?

Also keep an eye out for a special winter visitor - flocks of Waxwings have been spotted around Long Eaton this week - they love red berries and I would love to hear if you see some of these punky birds!

Until next week
Mrs Longmoor

New Eco-Team Photo

The observant ones amongst you will notice we have a new photograph of this year's eco team on our blog. This was taken at our last meeting when the children each decorated a notebook (made from recycled paper of course!) to record all their eco ideas. I look forward to seeing what they have come up with at our next meeting - well done Eco Team!

Green Hints

Our first green hint is now on display on the eco board - have you thought of using a reuseable sandwich wrap in your lunchbox instead of plastic bags or cling film?

Let me know any green hints you have - remember small changes make a big difference!

Mrs Longmoor

Keep Up to Date!!

Greetings!

The Parklands Eco team now have a Facebook page to make it really easy for parents and carers to keep in touch with what is going on. All you have to do is Like our Facebook page - search for Parklands Eco Team and click Like. We've also added an email link at the bottom of the page so you can recieive our updates direct to your email.

Lesley Padley

Green Ideas for the Eco board

This week I have been updating our Eco board which is in the family room. Check out the new photos and information and let me know what you think. We will also be adding "Green Ideas" to the board so if you have any little tips to help everyone be a bit greener please let me know - maybe you could even illustrate your idea into a poster to go on the wall! Have fun

Mrs Longmoor

Birds of the Day - Robins and Goldfinches

We had two sessions of birdwatching club this week and once again we had lots of birds visiting our feeders. They were:

1 great tit
1 wood pigeon
1 coal tit
1 blackbird

and our birds of the day were a Robin which visited the bird table and a Goldfinch which was actually on the feeder when we went into the garden.

This is why it is so important to go into the wildlife garden QUIETLY!

Until next week, Mrs Longmoor

Bird of the Day - Coal Tit

It was our first birdwatching club with our new screen and it was a huge success! Five children from Class 6 watched our bird feeders from behind the screen and birds were visiting about once a minute! We saw:

1 wren
1 great tit

and Bird of the Day was a Coal Tit

The coal tits love our sunflower hearts!

I was very pleased to hear from so many children that birds have been visiting their own gardens to eat the fat balls we made - May's was pinched by a cheeky squirrel we think!

Until next time

Mrs Longmoor

Feed the Birds Day 26th October

Today all the children made a fat ball to take home to feed the birds in their gardens - they all loved getting their hands mucky and were very proud of what they made. I would love to hear what birds come to your gardens to eat your bird food.

Matthew very proud of his work!

Also to celebrate Feed the Birds day we have a very special addition to our wildlife garden. Thanks to Mr Ellis and the people at East Midlands Wood Recycling we now have our own birdwatching screen!

May testing out the new birdwatching screen

Now we will be able to watch the birds that come to our scarecrow feeder without disturbing them so we are very lucky! 

Have a great half term - keep feeding the birds!

Mrs Longmoor

Bird of the Day - Blackbird

5 children from Class 6 joined me for birdwatching club this week. The first thing we noticed was that our goldfinch feeder was half empty and the new seed feeder was completely empty!  So the birds have definitely been visiting and enjoying our food. During a quick walk around the school grounds we spotted:

4 blackbirds rummaging in leaves on the ground
1 robin singing
30 pigeons overhead

The children did very well at spotting the different colours on the male blackbird and chose him as the best Bird of the Day!

Can you spot his bright orange beak and circle round his eye?

Until next time

Mrs Longmoor

PS we will be thinking about feeding the birds this friday and have a very exciting announcement to make, keep checking the blog for more details

Top Trumps Prize!

A great piece of news - Tomas in Class 6 has won 20 packs of Top Trumps cards for school by entering a competition in The Pod's e-zine. The Pod website is the place to find out about eco-schools and the e-zine has loads of great info and competitions for kids. Here is a link to the latest edition....enjoy!
http://cream.ceros.com/pod/pod10/page/1

Parklands Bug Hotel Open for Business

which bugs can you spot?

Our bug hotel in the wildlife garden is already attracting plenty of visitors with the children telling me they have seen lots of spiders and other creepy crawlies which is great news. To finish the hotel off properly we decided to make a sign to commemorate the brilliant work done on green day last year.

 Well done to the children who spotted all the different backgrounds for each creature and some even used the word 'habitat' to describe what the sign was designed to show - what a clever bunch! Hope you like it.

Mrs Longmoor

And the winner is......

Congratulations to all our finalists in the Wildlife Photography competition - all the photos were superb and it was a difficult choice.

I am pleased to announce that the winning photograph was Fat Spider by Oscar, 2nd place was Painted Lady by Luke and 3rd place was Red Deer by Eli.

Here are our three very proud and happy snappers with their eco-prizes of a nature colouring book.

Well done and thank you to everyone who took part in our competition.

Mrs Longmoor

Wildlife Photo Competition - The Finalists

Thanks to everyone who entered the wildlife photography competition - the pictures were all amazing so well done. The eco-team has now selected the 10 photos for the final vote and here they are.....


1. Hawk Moth

 

2. House Martin Nest



3. Painted Lady Butterfly


 

4. Fat Spider



5. Robin in Bird Bath

 

6. Bees on a flower



7. Fallow Deer



8. Slimy Snail



9. White Flowers



10. Red Deer


Now it's over to you all to vote for your favourites!  Please email your choice to parklandsecoteam@hotmail.co.uk by Monday 24th September. All Parklands children will have a chance to vote in school and the winner will be announced in assembly. I think you'll agree it's a very tough choice!

And finally, the eco-team would like to give a special commendation to this amazing photo of an iguana sent in by one of our Year 1 pupils. Unfortunately, the photo can not go into the final as it is a captive animal and the competition was specifically for wildlife but it is such a beautiful photo we wanted to share it with you - I think we have a budding photographer on our hands here!

Thanks again to all our little snappers and good luck!
Mrs Longmoor

Wildlife Photography Competition

The Parklands Eco-Team are holding a wildlife photography competition for the whole school as part of our work to increase awareness of biodiversity. The summer holidays are a great chance to get out and about so please take your digital cameras and phones with you! The photos can be of any subject – birds, bugs, butterflies and beasties, plants and flowers, fungi or just a natural landscape but no pets or farm animals please – keep it wild! (Maximum 5 entries per pupil).

All photographs should be sent by email to parklandsecoteam@hotmail.co.uk by Monday 17^th September. Please include name and class as well as a brief description. The Eco-Team will select a shortlist of 10 pictures which will be uploaded to the blog http://www.parklandsecoblog.blogspot.co.uk/ and you will all have 1 week to vote for your favourite. The 3 photographers with the most votes will win an eco-related prize and the 10 finalists will all have their photographs displayed in school.

Some lovely mosses, lichens and fungi to inspire you

Butterfly Spotted!



Holly Blue


During a brief spell of sunshine yesterday, I actually spotted a butterfly!  It was a Holly Blue.  As the name suggests, it lays its eggs on holly and ivy plants.  Our poor butterflies have been suffering this summer as they can't fly around in wet weather so it felt very special to see this pretty little thing fluttering around our new butterfly border.

Mrs Golding

Butterfly and Bee Border




White-Tailed Bumble Bee



Black 5-Spot Ladybird



Goodness me - the plants in the butterfly border really seem to have come on over the weekend and there are now many flowers coming into bloom.  Today we spotted a white-tailed bumble bee, who was making frequent return visits, a black 5-spot ladybird, a hover fly and a damsel fly.  We have yet to spot our first butterfly so please keep watching and let me know when and what you see. 

Mrs Golding

Green Day Wildlife Report

What a fantastic green day we had - the bug hotel looks awesome and we found lots of bugs and beasts to fill it up! My job for the day was to take the children on nature hunts looking for all the different types of wildlife that live in our school grounds. The children really enjoyed looking under all the stones and logs, picking up worms and slugs and trying to count the legs on the centipedes.....this is what we found:




Our wildlife sightings board




Hawthorn Shield Bug



Snail

Leopard Slug

Black Beetle

Bugs: ants, spiders, ladybirds, centipede, earwig, hoverfly, black beetle, caterpillar, bumble bees, earthworms, leopard slugs, snails, woodlice, blackfly, greenfly, a white butterfly and my favourite Bug of the Day - two hawthorn shield bugs.

We also kept our eyes and ears open for birds and saw or heard:
blue tit, blackbirds, starling, woodpigeons, swifts, magpies, crows, great tit and definitely Bird of the Day was a magnificant sparrowhawk!

Thanks to all the children for their enthusiasm during green day, I hope you had a lot of fun

Mrs Longmoor

Green Day

Here are photographs of some of the wonderful things we did on Green Day. 



Filling the bug hotel



Oh look!  A ladybird

Crissie Croc and his mini bug hotel

I drilled this log with my Dad!

  

Rolling up cardboard to put in

Year 2 answering questions

Hunting for minibeasts

   

... and then looking at them more closely

 

Year 2 made Carbon Monsters

Our completed bug hotel

The sun shone for Green Day!  based on recent weather it could have been a wash out but all our activities went ahead as planned.  The whole school took part in the activities and in the year of being awarded the Green Flag it truly felt that we were being 'green'.


Building on out 'Biodiversity' theme for this term, we looked at the idea of caring for all living creatures and plants.  The children got to meet a range of creatures who live over at Wilsthorpe School.  Many thanks to Mr Lonsdale and students for bringing a tarantula, milk snake, harvest mouse and gecko.  The children were very excited to have the opportunity to handle these animals.


In the Wildlife Garden we built a bug hotel to give insects a place to shelter and breed and do their beneficial work for our plants and vegetables.  All the children participated in adding to each layer.  We created different habitats by using wet and dry materials; newspaper and card, flowerpots, logs, bark, tiles, pinecones. All the children were excited to join in and are looking forward to revisiting and seeing which bugs and insects have moved in.


Mrs Longmoor's wildlife walks proved very popular and a large array of birds and insects were seen sharing our school grounds.  It was wonderful to see the children slowing themselves down and patiently looking amongst the plants.


Consolidating our earlier project of 'Waste', the Year 2's created some junk models of the Carbon Monster.  It really felt that the seeds of inspiration for the next generation of eco-warriors has been sewn.


I'd like to say 'goodbye' as Eco Coordinator and hope you keep up the good work. It's been such a privilege to share Parklands Eco journey. 


Mrs Hallows


A huge, huge thank you to all concerned and especially to our volunteers: Mrs Hallows, Mr Ellis and Mrs Longmoor.  Every single child in the school helped to build the bug hotel and must feel very proud. 

Mrs Golding

In the Garden

It has been a terrible year so far for growing things but, on the bright side, at least we haven't had to water the plants much! 

Butterfly & Bee Border

Butterfly & Bee Garden - the seed mix (from a reputable source, Lakeland Plastics) has been a little disappointing but the weather has not been particularly helpful!  Nevertheless, the border is at last looking as if it is doing something and I am delighted to say that one or two flowers have blossomed.  I have made a decision to leave a small number of certain weeds in the bed as I feel certain that the butterflies and bees won't object!

Carrots - are progressing painfully slowly, again the weather will have taken it's toll, but I haven't given up hope yet!

Salad Leaves

Cabbages - most have been eaten by slugs or snails but 2 have survived.  One of these has bolted due to the cold spell!

Salad Leaves - a very healthy crop is growing in one of the tyres in the wildlife garden.  I will sow some more with Gardening Club in the remaining empty spaces.

Potatoes - these appear to be doing very well so watch this space.

Potatoes

Ornamentals - now that half term is behind us, it is time to put in some ornamental planting in the train (Gardening Club).  If I'd had a crystal ball, I would have planted before half term and not worried about the watering!!!  I can feel a red, white and blue theme coming on... after all, it is still the Jubilee year and we'll be flying the flag during the Olympics too.

Mrs Golding