Welcome to the Boot Up! Project

Welcome to Boot Up! Outdoor Learning with Falmouth Forest School

Wednesday 31 October 2012

Active Allotments

Yes its that time of year again! Digging and preparing the allotments in March is always a lot of hard work but is also heaps of fun! 






 Off over the fields to harvest Hazel rods for bean sticks



 What a lovely day!




Creative Garden

Creative Garden Project

In the spring term we began to design and make a garden for The Den. After clearing brambles from a large area we started to plant bulbs and seeds to provide flowers for the garden and food for the bees.


Led by a Student Ambassador there were some garden design and planting workshops 




We dug a flower bed to create a wildlife border to encourage bees 


 and then we had a hilarious time adding manure (horse poo) which was smelly and sticky



Everyone had a chance to join in the design of the garden and each person had a chance to make a presentation of their ideas and then a collective decision was made, taking elements from each design


We planted some seeds for the garden in a cold frame


The soil is nice and healthy with plenty of wriggly worms


Then we went to the Garden Centre to choose Bee-loving plants that had a cheerful mix of pinks and red colours


 and a Bee loved the soooo much it came and landed on them! 


 after we had made the wildlife bed, we took delivery of a lorry load of turf and we began to lay he lawned area which was an instant transformation!


Its going to be a great space - so calm and pretty


Tuesday 9 October 2012

Fire Crackers!

We wanted to make the Tall Trees Allotment area more appealing and accessible to all, so we decided to make a Fire Pit and surround so that we could end our busy day toasting crumpets and chatting about our day. 

We began by going on an expedition to the woods to harvest some trees to make the pergola and surround.






Once the resources were back at the site we started making the fire pit with branches


We built it up slowly layering logs and pegging them in with stakes we whittled


        we sourced some logs to make the uprights for the benches



and we aded them to the pit surround and then added our wonderful funky chairs that we made with student Ema




                                                          Don't they look GREAT! 



 We had a masterclass from Jane in lighting fires using the one-minute-fire technique



 and soon everyone was up to speed in being able to light a fire from a fire-steel and some shavings


Crumpets - yum yum











Spring Garden





Monday 14 May 2012

Weather Wise

                                                                                                    
As the weather is always the main talking point of every day we decided we wanted to make a weather station so we set up a crate on an exposed corner of the fence - and yes you guessed it - it is raining! 


Each person was given an element of the weather station to create
starting with the barometer by adding a pressurised tube into water in a beaker and measuring the bubble rising and falling in the tube


 Next we made an Humidity gague by stealing a long strand of hair from a student! As the humidity increases the hair tightens and raises up the plastic indicator



 Then we made an Anometer to test the wind speed out of paper cups and a pencil


 The we needed a compass so that we could check the wind direction


 and a weather vane


 readjusting the barometer


 Drawing up a weather diary for the data

 Installing the Anometer 



 we added a thermometer so we can check the minimum and maximum temperature and a rain guague so we can measure the rainfall


Making our first record and surprise surprise there is rain in the guauge already! 


adding and checking the data - a job well done