Good morning everyone!

What amazing weather it has been over the Easter break. I hope you have all got a chance to spend some time outdoors for your daily exercise, and to appreciate the natural world around us.

Spring time is really one of my favourite times of year, with all of the trees coming into bloom and lots of new life shooting up through the ground too. Although I am really sad that I won't get to meet you all in the school woods to play in the sunshine this week, maybe we can think of how good it will be for our natural environment at school to also get some 'time-out' to rest and recover from our busy footsteps. The bluebells will be all coming out a the nursery end of the woods and some of the birds will be starting to nest in the trees. The blossom will be appearing on our beautiful trees in the school driveway too. Also, all of our well-worn paths will have a chance to recover and push up some new growth.

During the holidays, me and Sprocket spent a lot of time at our new allotment, getting ready to try our hand (or paw!) at growing some of our own vegetables. We have a lot to do, as we did not have a shed or a greenhouse on our plot, but we are slowly getting there and it is great fun being in the dirt and learning new things. We will be getting lots of tips from Alan (Angus's dad in P5), who knows a LOT about vegetables and is already on the school Eco Committee. Alan has started a really brilliant Facebook page called 'Longstone Growers Community', where you can get lots of tips for growing your own at home. We would really recommend dropping by if you are interested in gardening. He also has some great seed starter packs to give away, if you are interested. I will add some OL resources on there too over the coming weeks, and update you on our allotment progress. I will also be dropping in there for tips from Alan, as we need all the help we can get.

During the holidays, I was thinking about lots of the fun things that we get up to at OL, which you can also do at home. Lots of our classes, of all ages, enjoy doing a scavenger or treasure hunt. I have attached a Spring Hunt here for you to try on your daily walk if you like.

I really enjoy making my own treasure hunts and it got me to thinking about how easy it would be for us to use this idea to inspire our play and to do something fun for and with others.

WHAT TREASURE IS AT THE END OF YOUR RAINBOW?

So, this week, my OL challenge is to design your own Treasure Hunt, for someone in your house. It might be for a special occasion, or just for fun, it is up to you. I am going to get to work on making two treasure hunts this week, as it is my dad's birthday soon and my niece in going to be 4. I have decided to write a poem for my dad, to hide at the end of his treasure hunt and I am going to make my niece a rainbow coloured birthday cake. I hope that this will make their birthdays more fun during this strange time when we can’t have normal parties or meet up.

The rules of the Treasure hunt are:

1. Your treasure hunt should have at least 5 clues for the person to follow before they reach the prize.

2. The prize should be homemade or creative and not cost any money.

3. Your treasure hunt can be inside and/or outside your house. If you want part of your treasure hunt to be on your daily walk, make sure you take an adult with you. You could use chalk to mark the way if you have any.

4. Have fun!

I have attached here a drawing to show the challenge and some ideas of the kinds of prizes you might want to put at the end of the hunt...but it is totally up to you what you do for your hunt!

I hope you enjoy this challenge. I know that this might go on for a while in our family...as we can get a bit carried away with these things!

Please send your ideas to the normal admin email address for us.

Good luck and keep playing!

Miss R xx