ACTIVITY
MAKE BIRD FEEDERS
Birds don’t hibernate, but they do spend much more time tucked away inside thick vegetation, in holes in trees or even in attics during winter. Birds (like all mammals) can regulate their own temperature, but food is scarce in winter and forays for food must be quick to prevent suffering from prolonged low temperatures. By making simple but nutritious bird feeders – and lots of them – children will help birds survive the winter and encourage them to visit your setting all year round.
Pinecone feeders are a deliciously messy project for small hands, requiring squidging as well as careful decanting with teaspoons.
Ingredients: dried pinecones, raisins, lard (or solid vegetable fat), nuts and bird seed.
Equipment: twine and scissors, small mixing bowls and spoons, a tray.
To make the feeders:
- First tie a loop of twine around each cone so that you’ll be able to hang them up when they are ready.
- Decant each ingredient into a separate bowl.
- Cut the solid fat into small chunks and place a few pieces in each child’s mixing bowl.
Ask the children to tip a spoonful of each ingredient into their bowl, and squidge the mixture up with their hands until the ingredients are thoroughly combined. This is a useful action for building agility and strength.
Next, ask the children to pack the mixture onto their pinecone, pushing it into the crevices. Try to work quite quickly so that the fat doesn’t melt from the warmth of the children’s hands. If it melted a little during the ‘mixing’ stage, allow it to sit and solidify again.
While the children are washing their hands, place the feeders on a tray in the fridge for an hour or so, and then hang them out in the garden and watch out for the birds.
STORY TO SHARE
Winter Sleep: A Hibernation Story by Sean Taylor and Alex Morss, illustrated by Cinyee Chiu
I adore the spare but evocative illustrations in this book, and it’s perfect for reading outdoors. Walk through your garden (or the park) looking for the features and animals Granny Sylvie spots. The text is a collaboration between a children’s author and an ecologist, and includes scientific information about the hibernating creatures.
National Storytelling Week begins 30 January
MAINTENANCE
IT’S TIME TO…
Take the Christmas tree out into the garden – perhaps to the construction area so it can inspire some wintery STEM thinking. Once the tree has dried out completely, snip off the branches to use as kindling and slice up the trunk with a bowsaw to add wood cookies to your loose-parts collections.
Trim back any willow structures, if they have been attempting to take over the garden. Willow can be cut back quite severely and will still revive itself, so don’t hold back! Children will enjoy using the trimmings – willow is flexible and strong and is perfect for weaving, den-building and making 3D shapes.
Keep collecting fallen leaves – encourage the children to pile them into a heap in an unobtrusive corner, so that once they have rotted down a little, they can be used as a rich, warming and weed-suppressing mulch around your plants.
LOOKING AHEAD
MAKE PLANS TO…
- Look through seed catalogues with children, discussing what would look good in your garden, or would attract wildlife. Cut out the pictures of the seeds you decide to order, and decide where they could germinate and then grow.
- Mark Children’s Mental Health Week, which is 1-7 February. After such a difficult year, explore children’s well-being and mental health through activities outdoors. Take time to contemplate nature, take snack time and storytime outdoors, and encourage quieter children to find cosy places to curl up in…
- Celebrate Chinese New Year, which is on 12 February this year. If you have trimmed back your willow structures during January, use the flexible boughs to make lanterns.
A NEW PROJECT
BUILD PORTABLE PLANTERS
January is the perfect time to be planning the growing year, whether your setting has just a window box or a whole allotment. Vegetable and flower seeds can be sown in early spring and then planted out to enjoy fresh air, rain and sunshine. Share a ‘gardener’s calendar’ with the children. What kinds of plants would they like to grow this year? If you are new to growing, choose soft fruits such as strawberries, and simple veggies such as tomatoes, that are quick to grow and need little attention other than plenty of watering – which children will be very happy to provide!
If you are short of spaces for plants, consider building or buying (or scavenging from a tip or skip) a range of different-sized raised planters. Portable raised bed planters are one of my favourite features for an early years garden; besides the value of the plants, portable planters can be used to divide spaces up to generate separate zones, or create cosy corners or mark out a route for bikes and trikes.
Building a portable planter is not difficult and uses household tools such as an electric drill, screwdriver and jigsaw. If you are likely to be removing decking – or perhaps some parents might be – then remember to save the boards. Not only can they be repurposed as planters, they are also excellent in the construction area, sandpit or Mud Lab. There are lots of suggestions online – try Pinterest and wikiHow for inspiration and practical guidance.
If you already have planting boxes, giving them a new lease of life is as easy as screwing heavy-duty castors to each corner of the base.
RISK ASSESSMENT
WATCH OUT FOR…
Hibernating animals: Take care not to accidentally disturb hibernating animals. While only three British mammals hibernate (bats, hedgehogs and dormice), plenty of animals spend long periods asleep or inactive, and dense vegetation, log piles and compost heaps make cosy overwintering spots for these creatures. Encourage children to avoid these places – perhaps they could make signs depicting sleepy animals such as frogs, ladybirds and squirrels to remind children to keep away until spring.
Slippery pathways: The combination of low light levels, freezing nights and small children in wellies makes January pathways particularly tricky. A few handfuls of sand or grit will reduce slips, and try to keep pathways free of trip hazards such as loose-parts resources.
NATURE WATCH
LOOK OUT FOR…
Birds: January is the RSPB’s Big Schools’ Birdwatch, and you can register for the spotter guides and information pack on its website, www.rspb.org.uk.
- Children could make their own binoculars with two loo rolls.
- Print and laminate large pictures of garden birds and place them around the garden to help children quickly identify birds that do frequent the garden.
Catkins: Hazel trees and bushes have catkins, which allow the tree to reproduce. In January, they can be spotted drooping from bare branches and are plentiful enough to allow children to pick a few and test out the sensation of squashing them between their fingers. Later in the season, catkins dry out and become hazelnuts – why not revisit later in spring to observe the drier catkins, and then again in autumn to collect hazelnuts.
Snowdrops: Nothing says ‘honestly, spring will get here eventually’ quite like the joyful appearance of snowdrops with their delicate heads and vibrant green stems. If you don’t have snowdrops in your setting, buy two or three small pots of them to place outdoors. Once they have finished flowering (usually March) you can plant the snowdrops directly into the soil and they will come back every January, in ever bigger clusters.
RESOURCES
BEG, BUY OR BORROW…
Binoculars: Ask parents if they will lend you binoculars for January, so that children can spy on birds from indoors and participate in the Big Schools’ Birdwatch.
Fleece blankets: Trawl charity shops for fleece blankets; give them a thorough 60° wash and use them outdoors to create cosy spaces, or just to keep children warm as they listen to a story.
‘OUR GARDEN IN 2021’
FOR THE RECORD…
Floorbooks offer children an opportunity to reflect on their own activities and memories, and it is crucial to demonstrate how much you value the learning they do outdoors by including it in Floorbooks.
In an ‘Our Garden in 2021’ floorbook, keep a record of what the garden looks like throughout the year: ideally, taking a photo from the same spot, at the same time of day, once a month. Add photographs that children have taken and examples of the play they enjoyed. Focus on spaces that will change over the year (for example, deciduous trees) and try to capture children adjacent to fixed features that will help them to see how much they themselves have grown over the year.
