When the children in Miss Eccles’ Year Two class went out to the bug hotel today, they noticed our visitors had left! The last few days have seen many bugs in our nature area, both in the bug hotel and also in and around the gardening area and grass. Some children noticed that the soil was quite dry and wondered if this caused the lack of bugs.
In a totally child-led move, some boys went looking for water, and found some in a pile of buckets, boxes and watering cans which we’d been intending to tidy away. The boys explained that they wanted to ‘wet the soil’ and ‘make mud’, because they thought that ‘bugs might like the wet soil better’. Another boy started to dig deeper into the soil, because he thought the ‘bugs like dark’. So off they went and put their plan into action.
Simultaneously, another group of children wondered if the bug hotel needed a clean, and they set about getting that organised too!
Such wonderful play, and powerful examples of how our young children are learning to take on responsibility for caring for the outside environment. How special to see some of our youngest pupils showing they can ask questions, experiment and solve problems in this way.
A key principle of outdoor play is that children should be able to control, change and modify their environment - and our Year Twos are doing just that!
