Switch Off Day

A wet and windy start to Switch Off Day at Holt V.C Primary had Helen and I setting up to cook with every pupil throughout the school.  It was the first outing for the Tinderbox tarp shelter and we only lost the tent pegs holding the front of the tarp up about five times (its amazing how far they can travel).  The aim of the day was to show how you would have to cook if you didn't have any electricity.  We did 9 sessions lasting for half an hour each with the pupils mixing up bannock bread dough which we then cooked on skillets over the campfire.  While we waited for the bannock to cook, the bag of story stones went round and each pupil pulled out one.  In groups they told the rest of us a story using the pictures on the pebbles as cues.  With the bannock we had hot chocolate before the pupils returned to the gloom of the classroom with no electricity.

Recipe for Bannock

• A cup of flour
• Teaspoon of baking powder
• Handful of mixed fruit or 2 tablespoons of runny honey and a teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 cup of water
• Tablespoon of rapeseed oil

Mix all the ingredients together and the pat dough into a pattie about 1.5cm thick.  Shallow fry the dough turning after five minutes. Best eaten around a campfire!

Session four

A bit cooler than previous weeks, winter could be on the way.  We go on whatever the weather so we encourage everyone to have warm waterproofs.  This week we returned to the rope swing knot, which is a round turn and two half hitches.  Between two saw horses we set up a pole so everyone could see me tie the knot and then have a go. 

After a drink and a biscuit we talked about the safe way to carry long pieces of wood before everyone started building a group den.  There was some good teamwork with lots of discussion about how to go about it.  Great imaginative play as leaves were used to tile the den and a fireplace was created inside  There was just about enough room for everyone. 

Session three

Each week we try to keep to a similar format so the children feel comfortable being at Forest School and this helps develop their self-confidence.  We meet in the hall then the children run on ahead to the archway where they wait for Helen and I.  Then we all go and sit around the fire pit where we play the animal name game and go over the safety rules.  While Helen or myself starts the fire the children go and collect firewood remembering to keep the adults in sight.  We then go over the knots we have done and learn a new one.  We then have hot chocolate and a biscuit once the cups are cleared away we do an activity, which applies the new knot. Before we finish it's back on the logs and then we do some improvement to the Forest School site planting or making paths etc.

We always finish by planning for the next week.  This is child led, I suggests a few things and everyone votes on what they want to do and the majority wins. The final thing is a round of the animal name game before we head back to the hall. 

This week we swapped things about a bit and after collecting the firewood we planted trees because you can’t have a forest without trees.  The activity that everyone was excited about was building two rope swings.  Because of time constrain we left learning the knot we would be using until next week so that everyone had a turn on the swing.

Session two

This week once we were all seated around the fire pit the group were asked what safety rules they could remember.  The rule that seemed to have really sunk in was that you do not walk across the fire pit area but step over and out of the logs and walk around them to change places.  We then played the animal name game adding a noise and action to our animals.

We revisited our stopper knots and figure of eight knots to reinforce them.  Once everyone was happy to move on we learnt to tie a clove hitch, which is used to fix one end of a rope to an object.

Once the cups were packed away the last mouthful of biscuit was finished, three groups where formed and each group made a wind chime putting their latest knot into practice.

As we are developing our Forest School site the aim is to get the children involved as much as possible.  Today we laid a bark path from the archway into the site it is lined with logs. After a noise game of animal name game we head off back to the hall.

Session one

other end we threaded on a toggle, which we fixed into place with a figure of eight knot.

The children exten

We started with safety rules before getting down to learning each other’s names by playing the animal name game.  In the animal name game you tell everyone your name and an animal, which starts with the same letter.  This helps to give two remembering clues to each person. 

We are looking at knots this term starting with simple stopper knots and working our way up to more complicated lashings.  The first two knots we tried to tie, were the stopper knot and the figure of eight knot these are used to stop a rope from travelling through a hole.  We started with Sid the snake practice ropes and once everyone had had a go we applied the knot to something to help us remember them.

Before we started our knot belts the kettle had boiled and we had hot chocolate and a biscuit.  Each week we have a fire and the children collect the firewood for the following week.  They are instructed that the sticks should be no longer than their arms and no thicker than their thumbs.

Folding over one end of the string into a bite made our belts and then we tied a stopper knot to form a loop.  At the ded the fedge by pushing willow whips into the ground at an angle so claiming a little more land for themselves.

We finish our sessions back at the fire pit sitting on the logs to talk about what we have done during the session, plan what we are going to do next week and a round of the animal name game.