We love teaching and making resources to promote enjoyment, motivation, and understanding for children and teachers with a particular passion for learning outside the classroom.
We love teaching and making resources to promote enjoyment, motivation, and understanding for children and teachers with a particular passion for learning outside the classroom.
This is a fun and active way to get students thinking carefully about the difference between facts and opinions as part of your non-fiction texts topic. This resource contains animal and space themed task cards which the students need to sort into facts and opinions.
There are two activities we enjoy using the cards for.
Activity 1: Put students into teams of 4 or 5. In an open space, designate an area for facts and an area for opinions. Give each team a pack of cards and make them stand a good distance away from the designated fact / opinion areas (15 meters works nicely). Each team must take the top card and decide whether it’s a fact or opinion. Then one player must run and place the card in the correct zone before running back to their team. Once they’re back at their team they can discuss the next card and the next player can run to put it in the correct zone. Do this until all of the cards are in the correct zones.
Activity 2: Designate an area for facts and an area for opinions (two sides of a playground work well). As you read out the task cards the students must decide whether it’s a fact or opinion and run to the correct area. If you want to turn this into a game, the last student to the correct zone is out.
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This activity is designed to get students thinking about instruction writing while appreciating the world around them. It can easily be adapted to suite a wide age and ability range.
Ages 4 – 6
Get students to go into your outdoor space / woodland area and draw something they really like about the area on ‘my favorite thing’ sheet (animals, plants, sky, etc.).
Come back together as a group and discuss what they have chosen as their favorite thing. Explain to the students that you are going to use all of their favorite things to create a recipe for a woodland. This can be done together verbally or by writing a recipe on the board.
Ages 7 – 9
Get students to go into your outdoor space / woodland area and draw / list all the things they like about the space on the ‘my favorite things’ sheet.
Once you’re back in the classroom (or an appropriate space outside), explain that they’re going to write a recipe for their perfect woodland, using all the things they thought about while outside.
At this point it’s good to show the students a variety of other recipes, getting them to highlight the key features. Once they are familiar with the key features, they can begin to write their recipe for the perfect woodland, using our prompt sheets to help if needed.
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The tree age investigation is a great activity if you’re focusing on perimeter, measuring, or data handling. Your class will use a simple formula to figure out the rough age of the trees around your outdoor space, completing some fun challenges, or collecting data to input into graphs.
This resource pack contains two different activities you could do when looking at the ages of trees.
Challenge questions – For this activity your class will figure out the age of trees while completing the different challenges on the sheet.
Data handling – Students will collect data by identifying trees and calculating their age. They will then use this data to complete bar graphs and answer some questions about their findings. Both of these activities work best in pairs as it makes it easier to measure the diameter of trees.
Resources needed:
Flexible tape measure
Activity pack sheets
Calculator
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This Christmas themed coordinates activity contains 8 differentiated (4 quadrant and 1 quadrant) worksheets where the children need to find the missing Christmas themed words by using the coordinates given in the table.
This is great to be done in class or sent home as a distance learning exercise. I have used these time and time again and my class always love cracking the code.
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This halloween themed coordinates activity contains 8 differentiated (4 quadrant and 1 quadrant) worksheets where the children need to find the missing halloween themed words by using the coordinates given in the table.
This is great to be done in class or sent home as a distance learning exercise. I have used these time and time again and my class always love cracking the code.
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End the year with this fun Christmas literacy challenge! This pack contains 10 cards that you can hide around your outside space each with a fun Christmas themed challenge covering a wide range of topics for the students to complete on the answer sheet provided. This activity is a great fun and practical lesson to do at the end of the year.
**Topics covered: **
Acting
Descriptions
Adjectives
Instructions
Metaphors
Rhyming
Similes
Spelling
This resource requires minimal preparation, however a couple of the cards require some resources to go with them.
Card 4 - This needs to be somewhere where children can write using chalk.
Card 8 - Optional: Write the letters on this card on small stones so that children can physically move them around.
Equipment needed:
Task cards + Answer Sheet
Chalk - Lettered stones (optional)
Blindfold
Check out our outdoor Advent Calendar here.
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16 visual ecosystem vocabulary cards that are perfect for your topic word wall complete with a title. They are a great way to help your children learn the key terms needed for this exciting topic. We have found them especially helpful for children with English as an additional language. Each card contains the key word, definition, and visual aid.
Contents
17 X Key Vocabulary Cards
Display Title
2 Blank Cards
Vocabulary Included
Ecosystem
Adaptation
Biodegrade
Canopy
Carnivore
Community
Coniferous
Consumers
Deciduous
Dormant
Food chain
Food web
Habitat
Herbivore
Nutrients
Omnivore
Predator
Prey
Territory
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For this activity your class are on a mission to save the weeds. They will adopt a weed and spend some time studying it carefully and thinking about all the good things about their weed.
They will then write a letter to the caretaker or gardener persuading them to spare their weed from being poisoned or removed. This activity is great if you’re looking at persuasive writing, however it also has good links to plants and habitats as your class will research the benefits that their chosen plant has on local wildlife.
Teaching structure:
Instructions: Share the instructions with your class.
Weed ID: Get your class to find a weed to adopt and complete an ID sheet for it.
Research: Students will research their weed (internet, books, and observation), finding out how it can benefit the local wildlife.
Persuasive writing plan: Students will begin to plan their letter.
Letter template: Students can use a template to help them structure their letter if needed.
Resources needed:
Activity pack
Internet access / books
Magnifying glasses
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This is a great team activity to get children thinking carefully about reducing, reusing, and recycling as part of your sustainability topic. They will have to sort statement cards into the correct category in a fun relay game.
This can also be done as a simple group sorting activity.
**
Contents:**
Teacher’s Guide
Title Cards
27 Statement Cards
This is a perfect activity for Earth Day or Global Recycling Day.
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This activity is all about measuring circumferences. Children will go outside and find 8 trees to measure the circumference of, recording their answers in the table. It’s good to discuss what the easiest way to measure the circumference of a tree trunk is, hopefully coming to the conclusion that using string is a quick and easy way to measure the circumference. You can either mark out length of string or get them to measure the string after each trunk measurement.
Once they’ve recorded the circumference of 8 tree trunks they can then complete the differentiated question sheets. The second sheet has a focus on averages whereas the first sheet focuses on simple questions about the data they’ve collected.
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This activity looks at how plants and trees survive by dispersing their seeds which is a key aspect of the life cycle of plants. Your class will collect seeds and classify them based on the key dispersal definitions.
Teaching Structure:
Discuss what a seed is and why it’s important that they are dispersed. Explain that plants and trees have different seed dispersal tactics.
Go outside and collect as many different seeds as you can. This can either be done during the school day (it can make a great trip!) or set as a home learning challenge.
Put the class into small groups and give each group a set of the definitions. - Get the children to sort the seeds into the correct seed dispersal classifications. You can then take a photo or get them to draw the seeds onto the activity sheet and answer the questions.
As an extension, get them to design their own seeds with a chosen dispersal method.
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Have you ever wondered what lurks beneath the soil? With this science investigation you’re about to find out as your students become geologists to investigate what is underneath a patch of land. They will look into classifying what they find before creating their very own soil explorer museum. It’s a great resource if you’re looking at rocks and soil, geological skills, history, as well as the classification of materials and animals.
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This is a great resource to introduce or recap rhyming that can be used in a variety of ways. This pack contains 32 rhyming pairs with visual prompts on each card.
**Outdoor Activity – **Rhyming pairs hunt (whole class or small groups). Cut out and laminate the cards. Hide them around your outdoor space. Get the students to go find as many rhyming pairs as they can. To extend this activity you could get them to write a short poem or sentence using the rhyming pairs that they’ve found.
**Memory Pairs **(in pairs or small groups). Put the cards face down spread out on the table or floor. Taking it in turns, the students will flip over two cards. If they find a rhyming pair they take the cards and have another go, if not then the cards get turned facedown and the next player tries to find a pair.
**Match The Pairs **(individual or pairs). This is a very simple but effective activity where students will simply match the cards with their correct rhyming pair.
Become a police officer for a day while students use their measuring, division, and number skills to work out how fast cars are going in a chosen area using formulas and conversions.
For this activity your class will measure out a stretch of road before timing cars and using formulas to figure out the speed that the car is moving. They will collect a set of results in a table before creating a bar graph to clearly represent their data. After the investigation they will be given some evaluation questions to answer about what they’ve found out.
This is a fantastic real-world math investigation for those aspiring police officers!
Check out our Outdoor Science Bundle
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This pack of outdoor literacy challenge cards contains 20 cards each with a different literacy challenge for a wide range of topic areas.
These cards can be used in a variety of ways, from students choosing their own cards to using them as a scavenger hunt by placing them randomly in your outdoor space. This activity requires minimal preparation and is great as a starter activity or a fun brain break.
These cards contain:
Adjectives / Description
Metaphors
Personification
Rhyming
Similes
Spelling
Syllables
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A set of fun space themed NO PREP differentiated practise questions and word problems using the bar model focussing on addition and subtraction for years 4 and 5. The bar model is great to help children visualise and solve problems and is becoming much more widely used across schools. This pack will guide your children through the idea while giving them loads of practise at using it with and without word problems.
Contents
3 Sets of practise questions
4 Sets of differentiated word problems
Check out our inverse operation worksheets using the bar model.
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This phase 4 phonics visual word search is a great prep free activity to get students looking at the phase 4 sounds and spellings. It’s perfect for a filler activity, main lesson, or home learning. To complete the word search the students need to look at the picture, spell the word, and find the spelling in the word search.
This pack contains 4 word searches each with two levels of differentiation.
Diff 1 - The students must complete the spellings using the phase 3 sounds.
Diff. 2 - The student must spell the whole word.
Check out our Phase 2 - 5 Phonics Handwriting / Spelling Dice Game BUNDLE.
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This activity gets students exploring the wildlife in your pond by making their very own underwater viewer using just a plastic bottle, some tape, and scissors. It’s a fantastic activity if you’re looking at living things, habitats, or just want to give your students some time to explore this amazing world.
Teaching Structure:
Get the students to make their underwater viewers. Younger students may need help with this.
Give them time to use the viewers to explore the wildlife in your pond. Either during or after exploring they can complete the differentiated sheets recording their observations.
For higher grade levels you can get them to use books and the internet to ID what they see. Please note: There are obvious risks involved with this activity and there must be measures in place.
We suggest getting all students to lie down on an area close to the water level before using the viewers. Check out our risk assessment creator to produce a risk assessment quickly and easily.
We hope you find this pack useful and enjoy working outside with your class!
Check out our Outdoor Science Bundle.
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These CVC visual word searches are a great prep free activity to get students looking at the CVC short sounds and spellings. It’s perfect for a filler activity, main lesson, or home learning. To complete the word search the students need to look at the picture, spell the word, and find the spelling in the word search.
This pack contains word search for the short, a, e, i, o and u sound.
Diff 1 - The students must complete the spellings using the CVC sounds.
Diff. 2 - The student must spell the whole word.
Check out our Phase 2 - 5 Phonics Handwriting / Spelling Dice Game BUNDLE.
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This is a great STEM project to get students exploring the local weather as they design and build their very own wind vanes before recording the wind direction over a given time period. This projects is great if you’re looking at points of the compass, the weather, fractions, or as a fun STEM challenge.
Teaching Structure:
Talk about what a wind vane is and why they can be useful.
In small groups, complete the design sheet by getting students to think of their own ideas about how to build a wind vane. If you don’t want to do this, just use the example design.
Share each idea and discuss whether they’ll work or not.
Share the example design. - Complete the final design sheet if their designs have changed.
Build the wind vane.
Place the wind vane in a suitable location and complete the record sheet over a given time period. It can be interesting to put each group in a different place and then compare their results to see any variations in wind directions.
Complete the evaluation questions.
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