GREEN-FINGERED Barrhead schoolchildren swapped the classroom for the garden as they learned about the great outdoors.

Pupils at Carlibar Primary temporarily ditched their paper and pencils for plants and playtime to take part in national Outdoor Classroom Day.

The initiative aims to improve children’s health and enable them to develop a greater connection with nature.

In turn, the Barrhead youngsters held a harvest festival and were among 580,000 kids who got involved across Britain.

Little ones from Carlibar Primary’s P1 class helped their friends in P5B to plant daffodil bulbs, while P3A learned about herbs, before planting lavender and mint in the school’s community garden.

Elsewhere, P3B were charged with scattering beach tree seeds. The class then took time to study the tree’s lifecycle.

Explaining the thinking behind the scheme, a spokesman for Outdoor Classroom Day said: “Anyone who has seen the impact that learning and playing outdoors has on children knows how powerful such experiences can be.

“Learning outdoors creates lasting memories, helps build a greater awareness of the environment, provides more opportunities to think independently and gets children feeling challenged and excited by learning.”

The spokesman added: “Children are more active when they play outdoors.

“Lessons learnt outdoors, whether maths, science or language, often stay with us for life. Being outdoors helps children focus, boosts creativity and imagination and can simply be more fun.

“It is essential for their healthy development and enjoyment of childhood.”