Group 2

Hapa Zom 20/06/23

I listened to the forecast and knew it wasn’t due to rain until the afternoon. Mrs. Heslop looked at the clouds and said it was going to rain earlier than that. Luckily, we listened to Mrs. Heslop and put on water proofs and put up a shelter as by about 10 o’clock it started to rain (and didn’t stop until the afternoon). A bit of weather doesn’t stop Forest School.

We found lots and lots of ladybird larva. This is great as they eat the aphids and the cherry trees have been attacked by some kind of aphid that makes the leaves curl around and then die off. I am hoping that the ladybird larva will help to control the problem so the trees can keep on growing as the Forest School is looking more and more exciting after each week. The children described it a bit like a jungle. To me this is a great place to have adventures. Once we found one type of bug we were off looking for other sorts. We found a wide variety of creatures. It would be great to take a magnifying glass out to get a good look at them.

The picked different leaves again, but instead of sorting them we used them to make ‘Hapa Zom’ pictures. Hapa Zom is a process of hitting leaves with a hammer through some cloth. We made lovely patterns and pictures. One child said it would look good as a flag so we stuck them to a stick and made Hapa Zom flags – great.

In between the downpours Mrs. Heslop took some children to play on the climbing trees and hammocks. To everyone’s surprise a ferret came to visit. Apparently, it had escaped from the bird of prey centre and decided that we were having all the fun. When the rain started to make puddles in the hammocks the children came back and decided to make their own shelters. They looked very professional in the hard hats and high vis vests.

We had time for a snack and a drink which kept everyone going until dinner time.

Making our own Juice 13/06/23

The Forest School area was buzzing with life today. Although still young the trees provide plenty of shade for a myriad of invertebrates to thrive in the cool. I was not able to stat the session until we had found spiders, beetles, aphids and numerous other insects that I was unable to name.  The trees also provided us with shelter from the sun so we set up two camps to work in; one in amongst the trees for wood work and another under the wood oven shelter where Mrs. Heslop set about making ‘Mushymushy ‘.

We set off on our morning’s adventure by going through the rabbit hole. I thought we only had 12 children in the group but I am sure that I counted over 20 coming through the hole. (Maybe some children went more than once.) Last week one of the children stung herself. We all looked for stinging nettles and then we saw the small hairs along the stem. We decided to avoid these this week.

We saw that the elder tree was in flower so instead of having squash we thought it might be a good idea to make some elder flower drink. After picking and washing the flowers in hot water you have to squash or ‘mush’ the flowers down before straining the water out through a sieve. This is where the idea of calling the drink ‘mushymushy’ comes from. Every child tried it but not everyone liked it.

Whilst Mrs. Heslop set about on drink making and then using the hammocks I set up under the trees for some hammer time and creative making. I look forward to getting some better hammers but we all managed and started to make decisions about what would be the best nail for the task.

After a drink and a snack there was still time to have a go on the trim trail before going in for dinner.

Tree Detectives 07/06/23

A new start for a different group today. The Forest School is really taking off now with the trees forming a canopy over some paths and other areas being screened from the rest of the area. It makes for a great area with lots of places you can have an adventure. Of course, in another 10 years the place will fantastic.

This week the children found some clumps of Sticky Jack. I cannot resist using this to make hats, crowns or even beards. It is very itchy though so I can never keep them on for long. In the Forest School area, we talked about how we could sort out all the different trees. It is quite difficult to do it by colour as they all look green. We found that the leaves have different shapes and this can help us tell them apart. We found 8 different tree types. I think there are probably a couple more but I was very impressed by the tree detectives. There were also other plants found that we need to be aware of like nettles, thistles and brambles I am sure that the children will get better at identifying these too

There was time for the children to make some things with the wood, nails and tape. Other children chose to climb trees and play in the hammocks. Next week we can rotate these groups so everyone gets a go at the things that they want to.

We made sure that there was time for a drink and a snack before we had to go back to class.