Children's activities

Site visits led by our Urban Environment Awareness Coordinator are available by arrangement throughout term time at a park or open space close to your school. For more information, availability and prices, please contact Parks Services.

Schools and groups that have visited and enjoyed their activities in the park include:

Green fingered pupils plant bulbs in Morgan Jones Park

Earlier this year pupils from YGG Caerphilly visited Morgan Jones Park to learn how to plant bulbs.

All of the bulbs are native species, and by the end of planting the children had planted over 3,000 bulbs, including Tenby Daffodils, Winter Aconite, Welsh Bluebells, Snowdrops, Ramsons, Wood Anemone, Lords and Ladies, and Lilly of the Valley. The idea is to create a rich woodland floor, which will look beautiful and benefit the trees growing there.

Bulbs are simply underground masses of food storage from which plants grow. Bulbs, like seeds, are also available in different sizes, shapes, and types. True bulbs, such as tulips, onions, and daffodils, contain a complete miniature plant inside. They have fleshy scales of food that nourish the plant.

All of the children are looking forward to revisiting the park next spring to see the results of their efforts.

A River Kick with Waunfawr Primary School

One of the best ways to tell if a river is healthy is to carry out a river kick sample and monitor the riverfly larvae caught. The more variety found, the healthier the river.

Viv Huskins, from Groundwork Caerphilly contacted Dave Beveridge from Parks Services, to ask if Dave would carry out a wildlife lesson for Waunfawr Primary School. The school are currently designing an information board for Waunfawr Park, and the idea was to give some ideas to the children for their art. We were having a look at the River Ebbw.

The standard method is to place a kick net immediately downstream of your feet, and then kick the riverbed vigorously to dislodge any invertebrate life from the bed and into the net.

Obviously pleased with the catch. Dave asked Maggie Iles the Biodiversity Officer from CCBC’s Countryside department to give a helping hand. Maggie carries out regular riverfly surveys as part of her job and her expertise proved invaluable.

Then tip the contents of the net into a white tray and have a closer look. At first look the impression given was that the river must be very healthy as there were large numbers of larvae of Mayfly, Caddisfly, snails, leaches, and flatworms. The children also caught three bullheads. All looked fine, but we had all noticed a bad smell around the river, and Maggie’s experience pointed out that there was no Stonefly in any of the catches. This is a species quickly affected by sewerage. That explained the smell!

All had fun though and hopefully we will see the results on the information board designed by the children.

Fit4fun group hit Morgan Jones Park

The Fit4fun group visited Morgan Jones Park earlier this year and as it was a bit cold and wet the activities were held indoors.

The group helped Dave put together 25 Bat Boxes to go up in Nelson Wern as part of the park’s makeover. Each box provides a summer home for up to ten bats, which in turn could eat 3-4 thousand midges and mosquitoes per night, it adds up to…er…. A lot less biting and scratching for the people of Nelson. Three quarters to a million less biting insects per night!

Kelsie and Kayleigh getting stuck into the task. When asked if they would like to spend the last half hour in the play area said, “Not until we have finished all the boxes please”. Below, Helen Masters (Healthy Living Advisor) lending a hand and Kirstie having no problems.

Plasyfelin Primary visit Morgan Jones Wildflower Meadow

Year 5 and 7 children from Plasyfelin Primary in Caerphilly visited Morgan Jones Park with their teachers Mrs Pascoe and Mrs Evans, to help plant some wild flowers into the wildflower meadow.

Parks Service’s David Beveridge ordered the plants and most had already been delivered and planted, but some were late developing including some of the prettiest such as Ragged Robin, Red Campion and Birdsfoot Trefoil.

The children were hard workers and took no time at all to get all of the plants into the ground.

Once the work was done, the children had a guided walk around the park, as they were full of questions about the ancient tree and the carved tree. They enjoyed the morning so much, Dave was asked to do it again for two other classes in the afternoon, agreed of course. It just so happened, that wildflowers from the RHS Show earlier, had been donated to the park to be planted in the naturalising woodland area. Two more classes arrived and had a walk around the park again, then set to work planting Bluebells and Primroses.

St Gwladys Primary School build nest boxes

Pupils of St.Gwladys Primary School spent the morning adding to their excellent environmental record, by building nest boxes for the birds in Bargoed Park. David Beveridge (Urban Environment Awareness Coordinator from Parks Services) took twenty nest box kits along to the school for the children to construct.

After the snows had cleared, the children visited Bargoed with their teacher Carol Macy, and brought the boxes along to be put into the trees.

Dave explained to the pupils that the bird boxes would be placed in Oak trees as they can support more insect life than any other tree in the park providing plenty of ready meal for the baby birds. The boxes face east as they need to face away from direct sunlight at midday and out of the direction most of the rain comes from, the West.

After the bird boxes were fitted it was back to school where Dave Cooksey, from The Welsh Owl and WildLife Sanctuary gave a talk on owls. Pupils also had the chance to ask Dave questions and hold the owls (with protective gauntlet of course)

A further visit is planned to the park, when Dave will bring a telescope so the pupils can see what is using the boxes, and what they are feeding to their babies. Already, after only two weeks, two of the boxes have new tenants. A pair of Blue tits and a Pair of Nuthatches have taken up residence.