School Walk in the Woods at Bluebell time

Mary-Ann Featherstone is the project leader of Dorset’s “My Life, My Tree, Growing Together” school project. The project is proving more and more successful, with the knowledge the children are gaining being commented on by the schools involved.

Pupils learning about woodlands

Here Mary-Ann reports on a class 4 walk through the woods with the view to teach the children about growing, caring and planting native trees through practical learning.

As we walked we added 40 types of trees, plants, animals and birds to our species list. The silent walk on the edge of the wood revealed seven different bird songs, including chiff chaff and blackcap – both here for the summer nesting season.

As woodland detectives we found signs that the wood was old – a ditch and bank system, bluebells, wood anemone and dog’s mercury. We identified English oak, ash, hazel, holly and maple.

Lunch at the edge of the wood surrounded by bluebells, garlic mustard and orange tip butterflies was followed by reports back. Later, back at school, we created a woodland food web from our lists of finds, sights and sounds of the plants and animals in Milborne Woods.