Learning

Hello Bulb Buddies,

An exciting number of schools have reported that their Daffodil and Crocus plants are growing. Some schools have noted that their plants look close to flowering. With that in mind it is a good time to discuss the next part of the project – flowering records! There is a resource on the Spring Bulbs for Schools website entitled ‘keeping flowering records’. This document tells you how to keep flower records, the equipment you must use and the methods for collecting information.

The resource pack sent to your school in October contained a Crocus flowering chart and a Daffodil flowering chart. You can use these to record the dates that your flowers open and the height of your plants on these dates. You can then enter your flowering date and the height of your plant on this date to the National Museum Wales website. Once the first flowering date has been entered for your school, a flower will appear on the map on the Museum website to show where your school is!

Last year some schools were confused and entered the height of their flowers weekly. You can monitor how tall your plants are growing each week and let me know in the ‘comments’ section when you enter your weekly weather records. But, the ‘flowering date’ and the height of your plant on the day it flowers are to be entered on the NMW website only once the flower has opened. 

Look at the picture of Daffodils at St Fagans National History Museum. This picture was taken on a cold day, so the flowers haven’t fully opened. But you can still tell which ones have flowered by looking closely at the picture. If you can clearly see all of the petals then your plant has flowered. Before flowering the petals are held tight in a protective casing and look like this: 

The picture to the right shows a flower bud. Once the flower has matured inside the bud (and the weather is warm enough) the casing will begin to open. This can take a few hours or a few days! If you watch your plants carefully you might see this happening! Once you can see all of your petals and the casing isn’t restricting them at all you can measure the flowers height and enter your findings on the website.

Have you compared the heights of the flowers in your class? Are there big differences in the size and maturity of the plants, or are they all very similar? What about the plants planted in the ground? Are these any bigger than the ones in your plant pots? Why do you think this is? You can let me know your thoughts in the ‘comments’ section when you enter your weekly weather records!

Once the bulbs start to grow send your stories and pictures to our bulb-blog and follow Professor Plant on Twitter! 

Keep up the good work Bulb Buddies!

Thank you for updating me on how your plants are doing Bulb Buddies:

Ysgol Pentrefoelas: Dim llawer o law ond yn gynnes. Aethom am dro i weld y lili wen fach yn nghoed y Foelas ac roedd miloedd yno fel carped gwyn. Dim swn am bennau ar ein bylbiau ond maent yn dechrau tyfu. 4 pot heb ddim byd yn y golwg!

The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Primary School: Not so much rain this week but some frost at night. Almost all the crocuses have shoots now.

Arkholme CE Primary School: Warmer week than usual. Rainfall was less than last week. Bulbs are growing well. Some of last year’s bulbs are flowered.

Bacup Thorn Primary School: We have noticed a real growth in our bulbs and shoots. We have also observed a faster growth in our experimental plants indoors. Our crocus bulbs are around 9cm high and dafs are around 12cm indoors and 10cms outdoors.

Maesycoed Primary: A few crocuses are popping through the surface, yay!

East Fulton Primary School: Some of our bulbs are starting to sprout.

The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Primary School: Variable weather, mostly windy with a little rain. The daffodils are growing well and 22 of the 30 crocuses are showing shoots. They still don't need watering.

Silverdale St. John's CE School: One of the daffodils has nearly opened - it might happen over the weekend!

Darran Park Primary: This week, the growth of the Spring Bulbs was 5cm. Last week it was 2.5cm, therefore it has gone up 2.5cm

Grange Primary School: We have lots of shoots appearing! Children very excited to see their first flower.

Braidwood Primary School: Still no signs at all of any growth in the bulbs planted in the ground. The bulbs in pots show some growth in the form of shoots.

The Blessed Sacrament Catholic Primary School: This week has been quite windy with rain at times; the end of storm Jonah! The bulbs still don't need watering! It is quite warm outside for this time of year. We have noticed that 2 crocuses have now got shoots and the daffodils are growing quickly. It is very exciting.

Darran Park Primary: Last week, the growth of the spring bulbs, was 1cm but it has increased by 2 cm this week, and is now, 3 cm.

Stanford in the Vale Primary School: Very windy week observed and we have 3 daffodil flowers in the ground out in flower!

Castlepark Learning Centre: The crocus are starting to appear.

Castlepark Learning Centre: The first daffodils are showing.

Arkholme CE Primary School: It was not very wet this week, mild temperatures as well. Some snow on Saturday and Sunday. Our bulbs are growing well because it is very mild weather.

Ysgol Esgob Morgan: We have had a very windy week, but the daffodils are starting to grow now. From W.

Darran Park Primary: The majority of the pots the spring bulbs have sprouted around 1-2 cm.

Drumpark Primary ASN School: We can see the leaves sticking out but not all of them yet.

Stanford in the Vale Primary School: Starting to feel like spring....

While Nils, Fern and Imogen get stuck into searching archives and stores, looking at the Museum's collections and working with visitors and groups to get their ideas, how about we think about what play areas we like? what local ones have you played in or taken children to and they loved? what ones have you been to that you didn't like? have you seen play areas that just look amazing? What makes a playground good? what do want from a playground? does it have to look nice? does it have to look like a playground? I'd be really interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas.

Meanwhile, I have been collecting images of play areas which I think are good design, look fun, are imaginative, look exciting... i'm not suggesting we have a play area exactly like these in St Fagans, but it wouldn't it be great to have something different and unexpected?

Here are some images of the work of Nils Norman who is designing our new play area in St Fagans. For more information about his work and other projects, please check out his website

The two artists we are lucky enough to have assisting Nils Norman on the playground project are Fern Thomas and Imogen Higgins. Fern will be investigating the archives and collections at St Fagans in order to find inspiration and stories for the new play area. Fern's own practice is based in research and she has previously had a solo show investigating the history of the Mission Gallery in Swansea, entitled When the moon fell out of orbit: from the Institute for Imagined Futures & Unknown Lands

Imogen is a recent graduate from the ceramics course in Cardiff Metropolitan although her work has since developed to be more community focused and inspired more by land art. Imogen will be working with community groups and visitors to collect ideas and suggestions to feed into the design.

We hope both supporting artists will be able to share their work, discoveries and experiences as the project progresses.

So in my last post I was talking about how we have Nils Norman to design our new play area for St Fagans, I also mentioned that we were going to work with community groups and visitors in order to get their input into the play area. Last night I got my regular email from the amazing Playscapes website which was all about how to engage kids and community in playground design, super timely!

This is something we have been considering quite a lot - we want to engage our visitors and local communities, but how do you get children to talk about what they would like to see in a play area if all they've ever seen is a 'traditional' play area with swings and a slide? the article on Playscapes suggests asking the following questions to children:

What is the most dangerous, scary places you have ever gone?

Where would you like to go alone?

Where would you like to be right now?

What do you do that your parents tell you not to try?

What is the highest you have ever climbed?

Where do you go to be alone? To be with friends?

What is the silliest thing you have ever done?

What games do you invent?

How great is that? they also had a list of questions for adults, one of which was:

What value or sensation do you want your kids to experience: e.g. risk, fear, failure, satisfaction, accomplishment, beauty, tranquillity, action?

We want this playground to be different, we want a space where there can be risky play but there can also be quiet, contemplative play, a play area where children can enjoy creative play and a space that is open to be used in different ways. Of course overall we want it to be fun, a play area for plays sake.

Any thoughts please share - What is the highest you have ever climbed?