Year 2 started their Forest school adventure last week in the woods by helping Miss Brown install the badger cam! (See other blog post for what we captured on camera!) We have identified places that the badgers have been by looking for tracks in the leaf litter, broken branches and tunnels where branches aren’t growing, badger fur, clawmarks and digging holes and badger poo.  So far, so good, and next we hope to work out where their sett is, so we’ve moved the camera to a busy looking track to spot the direction they come from! Fingers crossed…

Aside from that there has been plenty of learning taking place in the session around outdoor habitats for humans. The children have been den building, with a focus on developing the skill of keeping your shelter waterproof by pulling it taut at an angle and using tent pegs or heavy logs and rocks to secure it. Some children have even gone as far as organising furniture and flooring!

To practise these skills at home- bed sheets, blankets, sofas and tables and chairs could all be used. We used elastic bands around the top of broom handles to secure blankets and problem solved different ways to keep the broom handles upright, clothes pegs are great for securing sheets and making the taut triangle shape that the dens have.

23/11/20  Moving on from den building with tarps and today the focus was on weaving! We looked at nests from a variety of garden birds and noticed how they wove together materials to keep the nest dry, soft and warm including feathers, moss and dog hair!  We also noticed the construction of the blackbird nest included mud, to help to hold it together.

With this in mind we had a go at weaving ourselves, using wooden uprights which we hammered into the soft ground with a mallet we then weaved willow in and out to create the base of our ‘nest’ structure. To be continued next week…

If you are at home, have a go at simple weaving with wool, string or sticks, pencils, straws.  Use one material as your uprights and weave the softer more bendy material in and out- or under and over.

07/12/20 A big thank you to all the parents who have been lending us their time to help at Forest school!  It means we can put on extra activities for the children as we have helping hands! So…

This week, the children had an opportunity to hone their weaving skill by working on a small weave themselves using willow and wool, practising the below and above action. Some children brought their weaving home to complete, they just need pushing into the ground to stay upright while the children weave with the wool they brought home, or any string, ribbons etc that you might have about.

 

We also made some badger snacks- apple and pumpkin seeds in the hope that we can capture footage of them eating them!

And we continued our work on our own woven bird’s nest!  Some children made their own birds nest with sticks, mud and wool- mimicking the ones they saw last week … And we ate marshmallows around the camp fire…

And finally Matilda did a little bit of homework and sent in this picture that she took of a birds nest that she found while walking… I’d love to see your photos of the outdoors- everything is interesting!

Send them to k.brown@meadowsideacademy.org