A big thank you to the helpers who gave up their time to come with us!

In early March 2009, both year 2 classes visited Mop End Environmental Centre to look at signs of Spring.  .  Leaders from the centre took the children out and about to undertake a variety of tasks -  feeling trees, making 'smelly cocktails', listening for sounds, burying nuts and making glis glis nests.

A glis glis is similar to a dormouse with a bushy tail and is only found in the Chilterns area.

This group are sitting quietly and listening for sounds of the woods, then drawing what they could see and hear - mostly birds and leaves and trees.

These children are looking for different objects  to put into their 'smelly cocktail' pots.  The cocktail was given a name and then the children introduced themselves and thier cocktails to the others

Each child was given 3 broad beans ( pretend nuts) and they had to bury them in a small copse.  Then 15 minutes later, they had to try to find them again.  A very competitive activity!  Squirrels do this every Autumn for their winter hoard.

Jackie and Theresa led the groups around the centre - making sure that we were all on task and safe - as well as giving us lots of information.

15 minutes later, the temperature of the 'blood' was taken to see how successful the nest site had been. 

This nest wasn't very successful as  the temperature dropped from 31 to 16 degrees centigrade.