Group 1

Rope Adventure 15/01/25

What a difference from last week! I did not need the three layers of glove. It was really pleasant and the sun came out at the end of the session to give us the false hope of spring. (We are a long way off that joy.)

This week we found a giant spider in the corner of the shed. I think there are definitely more than the one in there, just going on all the webs. I think spiders must hibernate through the winter months as there can not be much food about. I don’t know for sure, if anyone does I would love to know.

This week I thought it would be great for an explore. The children had been wondering what was over the stream and since the water was low I thought it would be good to go and explore. This provides a fantastic opportunity for children to develop their balance and strength. They also challenge themselves to complete perceived difficulties that is great for self-belief and confidence.

The first but was easy but it soon ramped up as we had to cross the stream. Ropes were deployed so everyone could get down the muddy bank, then another rope was used to help balance across the stream. To make it more fun we then used a fallen down tree to cross the final part to the opposite bank. What an adventure. The other side had a lovely shelving bank that was full of good stones to splash into the water. We found some puff ball fungus that was great fun puffing out the spores.

When it was time to go, instead of just crossing back we decided to climb up the other side and find a different way to the site we use for Forest School. Luckily, I had one rope left to help us up the slope and then we used that to get back down the slope to cross to our centre. I think you can all agree that that was a fine adventure. We were a bit worn out by it all so had our hot drink and snack to re-charge our batteries.

While the hot drink was cooling we put up some hammocks to play in. We also managed to fit in a game of camouflage. We finished our session with a longer quiet time than last week as it was that much warmer. I am looking forward to hearing more bird song as the weather warms but I still heard a blackbird enjoying the sunshine.

Freezing Fun 08/01/25

You can imagine how cold it was today but everyone turned up in lots of layers so no one (not even me) moaned about the cold. Mind, we did keep very busy and I don’t think we really stopped until our reflection time at the end of the session.

We went to the ‘shed’ to put the school clothes ready to get changed into when we came back. While we were there I found some hats for people who had not brought any. Before Christmas I was in the shed and I found a mouse. We saw the evidence of the mouse in the hats with holes in! We looked for the little critter but all we found was a huge spider trying to sleep through the winter months. We put her back as carefully as we could. If anyone has some humane mouse traps that we could borrow it would be appreciated we could call it ‘operation save the hats’!

We travelled along towards the dene. I was feeling inspired by our encounter with the mouse so decided to play a game of hiding mice and the curious cat amongst the bracken. The first try was not so good as the children thought they saw a wolf – how exciting. I was not sure what to expect as I peered through the bushes. I must admit to be quite relieved to find it was a plastic bag in a funny shape so it looked like it had eyes.

We made our way to the Forest School site via the horses, the running slope and the long short cut, just in time for a hot drink and a snack to keep us going. We got out the ropes and played with those for a bit. We had a game like hide and seek called camouflage and before we knew it it was time to come back to school for our lunch.