Coate Water Park

I was asked to run an outdoor session for HND students at New College in Swindon. It was a fabulously sunny day and their tutor Dawn had suggested that we walk to Coate Water Park Now often when we're taking students outside (even though they're doing childcare courses!) we get a fair amount of 'Oh, I hate walking' or 'I don't like mud' or 'Uggghh they'll be bugs and stuff' It never ceases to amaze me that these are people that want to work with children HOWEVER by the time they've been out for a couple of hours they are pretty much converted to the wonders of nature and keen to share that when they go back to their placements.

Coate Water Park is a good half hour walk from college so I packed one back pack and took a tarpaulin and off we went. I wanted to show that you can do an awful lot outside with minimal kit. Some of the students knew the park and suggested we walk round to the right past the high,, but sadly disused concrete diving board. It was a lovely walk with the water on our left and we strolled past beech trees with many hearts carved by loved up Swindon couples, grassy areas, over wooden bridges and round to the other side where we found some dry ground with bluebells and ferns.

We had a discussion about Forest Schools (FS) and if any of their placements used woodland,, talked about 'watered down' FS where people go onto the school field or stay in the pre-school garden but decided that if people were taking children outside then that was a good thing whatever it was called. I suggested they look at the Forest School Association website for the FS principles and more information.

We also talked about Mud Kitchens and children having access to real natural materials and at that point I asked the students to split into groups and make some mud food. This gave them a chance to explore the area and me a chance to flip out the tarp and organise a few other things.

Spaghetti and meat balls!

Salad with mushrooms - prompted a discussion on what to pick and how you would explain that to children

Sausage, peas, broccoli and gravy

We also had some fabulous mud puddings and no one minded getting messy. We'd talked about FS raising confidence and self esteem and I'd asked the girls to talk to each other in a positive way throughout the session and they were brilliant, really encouraging each other and swapping ideas. One group made up a Going on a Bug Hunt game based on Bear Hunt. They performed this and if I can work out how I'll upload the video.

They stayed in groups and we covered a lot of activities in a short space of time, it's always a bit of a whizz though but I think people take something away with them which gives them confidence to try new things with the children that they work with. I showed them the Manifesto for the Early Years; Putting Children First published in March this year. Their assignment at the moment is to compare different approaches to the curriculum and I thought that this document was worth reading.

Making wands

This group was making things with a stick and came up with a broomstick fixed with a hair bobble.  This led to the wands (above) as we had a Harry Potter moment!

Is it maths, art, social? Or just fun?

Words about the session. Check out all those wands!

We could have stayed there all day it was a wonderful spot but all too soon we had to pack up and head back. The girls stopped for a quick play on the park - explaining to the parents of the toddlers that they were Childcare Students! Luckily the ice-cream kiosk was open so we had one of those as we walked back to college.

More Links

Muddy Faces, information and shop

Niki Willows - Outside

Woodland Learning - local FS courses with the lovely Ruth

Learning for Life - nursery that spends a lot of time outside

Keep it Simple - pdf of outside ideas

Bunting

Don't we all love a bit of bunting. It makes us feel like there's a bit of a celebration going on. I shared Kathryn Grogan's Mud Kitchen photo on facebook this week and I have to say it went NUTS! Currently it's had 396 shares and over 26,000 views which is unheard of for my little page.

The group is Isle of Wight Wildlife Tots and the web address is www.hiwwt.org.uk

As you can see it is a cracking photo but I was wondering what made it so VERY special to be whizzed around the world that much. I think it's the stump oven, I've not seen one of those before and it is a wonderful creation. But a few people commented on the bunting and I thought yes, bunting does make things look marvellous. 

The street I live in had a Bunting Evening once. We like a street party every now and then and had an evening of cutting and sewing to make some for our 25 Year Party (our Jubilee!) We used the kids old duvets, sheets, flowery 1980 dresses and anything we had really. When it's up I like to look and see what memories are hanging up there.

I think this was a Royal Wedding street party - any excuse!

I've also made Hapa Zoma bunting when I've been working with students. It's quck and easy and a wonderful collaboration as everybody contributes to a beautiful whole.

 I started thinking of ways to make cheap bunting with what I already had and remembered all those plastic bags shoved down the side of the cupboard in the hall. You know those 10p 'bag for life' ones - the ones I always forget to take with me to the shops so end up buying more each time. I dug out the ones which were a bit tatty and the ones with holes in and decided to use those. I also thought these would be great in England where we have so much rain. Waterproof bunting!

Step one - cut down the sides of your bags and turn them inside out. Fold then in half again so you can cut lots out at once.

Step two - make a triangle template and use a sharpie marker to draw a long row of triangles.

Step three - cut out (I had about 22 from one bag)

Step four - lay in the order you want and attach to string with staples. Well, this was my original plan but after jamming two staplers and finding myself banging them hard on my desk I switched to double sided tape!

I hung a short length on my children's old playhouse (now my tool shed) and I think if it can make that look bright and cheery it would do a good job anywhere.

As soon as I took this it poured with rain and ten minutes later was sunny

  

Bug House

Oh what a fun morning I've had. At the end of the Hallr Wood visit we had to make a commitment to DOING something when we'd left and I said I would make a Bug House. I do love them, I have a whole album full of them on facebook but I have never made one. My garden is full of rotting wood, a pond with stones all around and most of the garden is pretty unkempt. I have a lot of bugs and over the years have had hedgehogs, grass snakes and slow worms  too. 

I always think of Bug Houses as more of a DT project for children than much to do with bugs because let's be honest, once you've put the thing together you're not going to take it to pieces to look inside. So I would still have the rotting wood and the carpet tiles around to lift up and peek under and put back again carefully afterwards.

But if a school or nursery is looking for a great design project using lots of different materials get some pallets and GO!

I didn't need a pallet as I had an old wooden box the kids had found chucked in the ditch at the end of the garden years ago. It was only small - just over a foot across - but I decided to use this as a practice for my MASSIVE bug house which I have all beautifully designed in my head :)

I wanted to give it a bit of protection from the elements so made some tin can tiles with tin snips. These are REALLY sharp so I bent the edges over by bashing with a hammer on the edge of the table (outside table not dining one!) I held the tin still with an oven glove which worked really well. I tacked the tiles on the roof which was tricky because the tin kind of bounced! So I used a big nail to make a hole and then little tacks. I don't think it is particularly waterproof as it really needs a pitch in the roof, but I like the look of it.

Bean tins and tin snips

bashing the sharp edges over

Once the roof was on I filled the sections with a variety of plants from the garden and some seed heads and also some bark. Had to press gang Charlie into cutting the last few pieces as my hand was hurting! Once he saw it though he was more than happy to get involved. I had one piece of hazel that I cut as a measuring stick and we used that for all of the cutting.

measuring stick

I didn't glue anything in, although I had read that some people do it didn't seem very natural to me so we just rammed everything in really tightly. It will dry out and shrink and we'll have to top it up in a couple of months.

Sid was really helpful

Ta da!

 I have put it against the fence in a quiet corner that gets a little sun in the morning, it's balanced on some old wood where there are already some bugs. I asked on facebook where the best place to site it was and Lily said  'Where the bugs already are' pure common sense!

Creative Landscapes at Hallr Wood

When I took redundancy from the council one of the things I was most excited about was LEARNING again! Since 'The Cuts' most council training had been internal or a bit of feedback from a course someone else had been on, travelling out of county for anything needed a special permit and networking with other counties seemed to have faded away. So as soon as I could I booked a few things and the day at Hallr Wood was the first to come up.

I'd connected with the wood's owner Deb Millar on the FEI facebook page but we'd never actually met in person. Tori and I arrived on a bright sunny morning and made our way up the slope to the camp area of the woods. We were met with lovely tea and proper coffee and an explanation of how to make a Nature Book to document our day. This was a lot of folding of wallpaper backing paper, tucking it into a cover and holding it together with a stick and wire.

Performance area

We split into two groups to walk around the site which was truly beautiful. The slope had been well utilised to create a tiered seating area looking down to a stage, paths edged with timber led to a wood steaming machine (I'm sure there's a proper name for it!) made of an old gas bottle and cob. 

Steam machine!

As we walked Deb explained that many of the projects (including a Tardis) had come from comments that the young people they worked with had made. For instance the cob kiln was after someone had asked to make pots and been told they could but they wouldn't be hard enough to use properly so the girl said 'Well let's make a kiln then'

The pee-pit and beautiful beach hut style loo 'shed' solved the question of  'Do bears...?' A quick stop by a pond with tiny pond-dipping platform - where I could have stayed all day - and back up to the camp via a kitchen stocked with an enviable array of huge cooking pots and pans, many ex-Guides utensils because apparently they cook on gas these days.

We then worked in groups of three on a variety of activities - Deb quickly syphoned off Lewis recently back from re-building earthquake torn Christchurch to get stuck into her mud kitchen re-build. The group I was in chose to build a bug house down by the fairy garden to protect the path leading to it. It was  a fabulous sunny spring day and as we created and chatted some of the magic of the wood crept into all of us.

We stopped for an amazing lunch of veg and bean soup - more like a full-on stew to be honest - which Deb topped with snipped wild garlic, also large chunks of bread and more lovely tea and coffee.

Back to work and swapping activities we ended up down at the mud kitchen where we finished off the draining board (I only bent two nails - not bad for me) and started to cob the cooker and pot stand. This mud kitchen was not only for mud play but was actually made of mud too. How very special. The clay was from the wood and just a wonderful consistency, I worked in a pottery years ago and was eager to get my hands into it whilst at the same time being quite frustrated that I couldn't take any photos! So it was a bit of cob, a bit of hand washing, a few photos and back to the cob.

Our group ended the day at the top of the wood finishing off a contemplative space that the others had been working on throughout the day. It was a well defined area so we decorated it with leaves, ivy and twigs. We were feeling that we were the design team of the day after our beautiful bug house and mud kitchen re-vamping. End of activities was heralded by a hunting horn which sounded once more and the rest of the group came up to the top to view the space that everyone had had input into.

The whole wood is a series of spaces, often bordered by live willow arches and you can't see the whole thing from any one point so as you walk around you are constantly surprised and delighted. We all felt at the end of the day that we had added to the spaces and learnt about defining them too.

We finished with a re-cap around the fire, free packets of seeds from Deb - party bags! - and left feeling elated at such an inspiring and collaborative day, and I think we all hope to return to Hallr Wood too.

Forest Education Network - National Networking Day, England

I spent last Friday at  Wyre Forest Discovery Centre  in Worcestershire at the Forest Education Network networking day. The FEN is 'hosted' by Learning Outside the Classroom 

Sticks at a conference!

Loads of weaving

I'd arranged to meet Mel who I'd met on the Forest Education Initiative page on Facebook and she'd drive us up there. I was already feeling a bit daft as when I'd filled in the application form I'd put under job title 'Haven't decided yet!' The delegates list had been emailed out and that was me! I was feeling much dafter by the time I got to Mels; at 8am prompt I was easily parked and knocking on her front door. The dog was barking and no one came, I knocked again, nothing. I rang Mel and said 'Hellloooo I'm here!' And she said 'No you're not, wrong Northcote Road'. Who knew there were two?! So I jumped back in the car and found a map app on my phone (Sat nav has been broken for a while) and headed for the other Northcote Rd. Managed to park on a main road and legged it from number a hundred and something down to Mel's. Banged on the door - no bell, and no barking dog this time. I thought this must be the right house as there was mud smeared on the door frame and then realised it was blood, ummm...Still no answer, phoned again and she said 'No, you're in Northcote STREET not Road'. How daft did I feel? VERY!

I ran back up the road feeling pretty hot and flustered by this point and decided to invest in two minutes of looking properly at my phone to find a sat nav app. Sorted that out and put in the postcode and off I went. Finally found the right road, knocked on the beautiful blue door - nicest of the three and no blood, to be greeted by a smiling Mel and a big hug, phew. She was happy as she'd had extra time to print out some business cards to give out at the event. We sat in Mel's car and discussed the fact that we both had banana peel on our dashboard and she turned the key. The car battery was dead! So we jumped into my car and headed north with Mel navigating and horrendously late.

We finally arrived and had a fab networking day as well as looking around the Discovery Centre and doing a couple of workshops. 

We heard Steve Fowkes from the Forestry Comission speak on engaging future generations in our woodland. Trying to get away from the image of a bloke with a chainsaw as being a bad thing, especially when talking to children. 

Sue Moss from Forest Stewardship Council spoke on how educators can make more links between forest products, ecological and economic rights both in the present and future.

A chap whose name I didn't get spoke about jobs in forestry and how enough young people just weren't coming through into the business. This seems to be a familiar call as it was also discussed at the FEN launch a couple of years ago. We need to get children interested and excited about woods not just in early years which is fabulous about getting out and about, but we need to keep that going through primary and secondary education too. I bet everyone reading this is sat on either a wooden chair or is leaning on a wooden desk. That wood need to come from our forests managed by a local workforce.

More Forest Education Network launch and Wyre Discovery Centre photos here

Gabriel Hemery, Cheif Executive of Sylva Foundation spoke about the launch of The New Sylva book. Ooooooh it is BEAUTIFUL. No photos, just incredible drawings of trees. I had to go and find him afterwards so that I could hold the book, it's a definate birthday list one (hint hint dear family) I believe it is going 'on tour' and will be coming to Westonbirt.

I chose the following workshops - 

Creative Engagement -  with Richard Irvine Director, Outdoor Learning who mentioned Guy Claxton and Building Learning Power which is worth a google.

Richard and Muddy Faces bag

We found Roland the round, rolling rock.

Who wants a ball of string like that then?

Managing Woodlands for Conservation and Wildlife Benefit with Wildlife Ranger Phil Rudin and Learning Manager Liz Bunney

Doormouse nibbled acorn 

• Free online resources
• Primary resources, Forestry Comission
• Teacher resources - Teaching Trees
• Woodland Management resources - Sylva
• Lesson packs and Forestry Friday resources- FSC

Upcoming events

Spring Forest School Southwest Gathering Torquay May 9th - 11th

Night Time Forest School

Slightly misleading title as this was not really a Forest School session but a session ABOUT Forest School that was delivered on a cold dark evening in February.

I've been guest speaking at New College in Swindon for around six years now on Forest Schools and Outdoor Play. I have had the pleasure of working with students doing Childcare at Level One to Health and Social Care teenagers and Foundation Degree and HND students studying Early Years. Each group is different and I always come away having had a truly special time.

Last night’s session was two hours to give the students an overview of where Forest School has come from and where it is currently. I try to do this through a serious of photos on a standard PowerPoint, video clips and some practical time too. Anyone who runs Forest School sessions – and I don’t – knows that to truly understand FS you have to do it and feel it and be there, not watch a PowerPoint. But on the other hand if we can get something into education about FS for students who are looking at a career with children we may light a spark that they carry on into their careers.

Usually when I do a session the majority of it is outside and New College are lucky to have a large grassed area opposite with willow and oak trees and for longer sessions  a wonderful mature woodland and lake ten minutes walk away. However, both of those areas are heavily used and even on daytime sessions we have come across all manner of broken glass, pretty grotty rubbish and other things that you wouldn't want to step on in the dark.

I had asked all of the students to bring a jam jar which they all had so after an initial 'what is FS' we went for a collecting walk around the immediate area, which happened to be a large car park with exceptionally well manicured bushes. Literally not a fallen leaf to be found! The group managed to pick up some bits and pieces and we headed up to the classroom.

We looked at who runs FS training locally – the lovely Ruth Parsons at Woodland Learning who sits under the Archimedes umbrella, as well as Brdgwater College  and the history of FS there. I touched on FEI   FEN & LOtC and we watched the Bristol zoo Wild Place video ('It makes you feel kind of 'free' chokes me up every time!) Then settled down to a spot of creativity. I had taken some violets and hellebores from my garden as well as a basket of stuff from Scrapstore. So whilst the ladies created I set out a load of printed resources and took some photos.

The finished items were all different although had the same kind of Spring feel. When students are really engrossed in an activity I like to wade in and firmly say ‘Ok, put that down, we’re finished now!’ And insist that they do put it down – over the years I have had to be quite forceful in my manner. I do this to really push home the point that when children are engrossed the last thing we want to happen is some adult waltzing over and telling them to take that den down because it’s snack time, or breaking up a marvellous Lego model because it is time for story. But I couldn't bring myself to do that last night so just talked it through. 

 We discussed offering a provocation such as the jam jars but not making them the be all and end all, they can give structure - usually more needed for adults who need a plan, but once outside let children go with the flow. I touched on risk and 'not wrapping children up in cotton wool' but I know that a lot of practitioners have difficulty with this one when they get back to their settings and schools. One previous student told me she took conkers into school and was told to take them away again because a child had a nut allergy. Not a conker allergy, a nut allergy.

Wonderful spring mobile

I had taken tea-lights in case anyone wanted to make their jar into a lantern but had luckily forgotten the matches as Tutor Dawn pointed out the smoke alarms in their new building. It would be great to have taken them all outside as a group and light them though.

We ended with a five minute ‘find two ideas to take home’ from the printed resources and the students left holding their  beautiful spring creations.

Thanks guys :)