British Food Fortnight Smoothies

We were very busy last week, out collecting ingredients for our smoothie to enter into the British Food Fortnight competition and trying out different recipes.

On Tuesday a group of children went out blackberry picking

When they got back to nursery they added them to the other ingredients and the children of all ages got involved in creating our first smoothie.

It tasted great, but wasn't quite right!

So on our walk on Wednesday we went in search of other ingredients. In the orchard leading up to nursery we picked some pears.

These children carried on on their walk so didn't have time to make a smoothie, but thier friends used the pears and the remaining blackberries in our second try on Thursday.

We're not quite sure if we have perfected our recipe, so we have been to collect more blackberries to keep trying, which will mean more tasting!!!

Bug Hotel

Have you seen our fabulous bug hotel at the bottom of the car park?

We have become very interested in the insects we find in the nursery garden, in our meadow area, orchard and out and about at Forest School and on our walks. The children have been using magnifying glasses and reference books to find out more about them.

We found several examples of ideas for building insect hotels to provide the right habitats to increase the number of beneficial insects in the garden, and decided to build our own. Perhaps you would like to make one too!

Here is how we made ours.

• We took a postcard to 'Buider Mark' at the estate yard to ask for any old palettes, wood, bricks and pipes he could spare.
  
• We took a postcard to 'Farmer Jake' asking if we could collect wool and straw from the farm
• We collected pine cones and sticks on our walks
  
• When we had assembled everything the children used wooden trolleys to transport everything to the area chosen to build our hotel (between the buddleias - good for butterflies!
  
• The children had good fun positioning all of the materials, as you can see from the pictures.

We are doing regular checks on the bug hotel, but there are still some vacancies so please tell any insects you know!!

Choosing our Christmas Tree!

Last Friday we were treated to a tractor ride up onto Bredon Hill to choose our Christmas tree. Derek collected us in the Overbury Farms tractor and trailer, and delivered us up the hill to Martyn the forester - who was waiting to fell which ever one we chose. We came back to Overbury Grasshoppers with a 7 foot tall, beautiful bushy green tree to decorate!