Egg rolling gets everyone in a bit of a spin!

You could tell that it’s the end of term by the hyper group we started with today.  After much excitement from egg rolling in the afternoon it took a little time for everyone to calm down.  We started with the animal name game as we had two visitors, mums of two of the boys had managed to get an afternoon in the sun off and wanted to come and see what FS was all about.  We collected fire wood for the last time for a while today as next term the group have decided to have squash instead of hot chocolate as the weather gets warmer and they were reminded that a sun hat would be a very good idea to keep the rain off.  The three eldest boys build the fire and then lit a corner each with the fire steels, ready to cook pizza wraps for everyone.  The hot chocolate was made extra special with mini marshmallows and the feast was finished with a biscuit.

The children had decided that we were going to play hide and seek and then after the feast, play on the slack line and rope swings.  One of the mums was impressed when two of the boys who had not been caught answered to ‘123 where are you’ straight away.  A lot of what we do at FS is standing back and letting the child get on with it.  A good example came at the end of the session a small group had started working on a circus routine last week on the slack line and today they performed their show using the line in lots of different ways.  This creativity could so easily been crushed by me saying you just balance and walk along the line from one tree to the other but they took it to a completely different level working as a team, with individuals working out what they could do on the line and then getting the whole FS together to watch their impromptu show.

Next term we are going to take the slack line and rope swings farther as we look at building an assault course.  I’m already thinking about making a net to crawl under, rope ladders to climb up and a problem solving bridge exercise in

slacking off

It’s interesting how ‘I don’t want to do that it’s boring’ turns into ‘just a minute I just want to finish this bit’.  One of the favoured activity at FS is hide and seek but on a playing field there are not many places to hide so today’s activity was to build some structures to hide behind.  We had five to build and so we ended up with randomly chosen groups of three working on each structure.  We already had willow, which could be woven onto the structure and then it was a case of finding what you could.  One of the boys had the idea of stripping the bark from the logs that line the entrance to the FS to use to build into his structure.  Soon we had what appeared to be a gang of beavers working on all the logs, so now we have naked logs and somewhere to hide.  I hope we will keep adding to the structures over time but very much like the den design it's up to the kids.

After a drink we set up the slack line, which is a length of webbing strop that goes between two trees and then is pulled tight through a ratchet.  Whilst some children were still working on their structures and some playing a game of tag we had a small group balancing along the line.  

Its great when we have lots going on and the children can dip in and out of activities and also start to lead on the activities.  With the slack line we started off by walking across it then someone decided that they could balance in the middle and then jump up and land back on the line.  Once one had had a go then someone else wanted a go and so on.  When this happens you just step back and watch the self directed play - great!

Today’s session was a bit of a rollercoaster ride with highs and lows.  We started in the school hall as we needed to sit down and talk about behaviour at FS as there is a small disruptive element who keeps pushing the boundaries and behaviour has been slipping over the last couple of sessions.  FS operates an open door policy, which means we will do our best never to exclude anyone, we work on trust, you gain it and you lose it, but you can always gain it again.

Once outside in the fresh air we had three new fire builders putting together the tipi of sticks ready to boil the kettle while everyone else collected wood for next week.  With the kettle over fire and the boys divided the hot chocolate powder between the cups ready for snack time. 

To enhance the FS site we planted primroses along the entrance to the Forest School as one child called them ‘leading lights to bring everyone into our special area’.  It is interesting how the group are gaining a real sense of ownership of the site, as they worry about the rest of the school damaging their hard work.

Last week we decided to play games this week and I said I would teach the group a new game but when it came down to it only a handful wanted to play.  The group divided up some going off to build a new den, some to play hide and seek and some to kick about in the leaves.  This is great though, we are all about being child led and we plan activities but sometimes the group have different ideas. By the time the session was drawing to a close most of the group were back together playing hide and seek. We finished the session inspecting the new den with as many of the group as possible hiding inside. 

  

When the rope touches the ground there is one to many on it

Back after a week in a forest in Devon training for me to this weeks knots and rope walks.  We take a vote on want we are going to do at the next session and last time it was more rope swings and a ropewalk and learning the knots we would need to build these aerial constructions. 

We had some good stick collecting although one or two have forgotten the no thicker than your thumb and not longer than your arm rule so next week we will just go over the rules again.  We had three new fire builders today and their fire went very well, the kettle was boiled before we had finished our knot revision.

We have not looked at knots for a whiled so we started with a stopper knot and then the figure of eight.  Then to get everyone working together we learnt a new knot; the sheet bend.  This is made by first tying it in our own cord then standing in a circle we tied our cord to the person standing on our right.  Once we had a complete circle of cord we tested our knots by holding onto the cord then leaning out with everyone supporting each other, we then stood inside the circle and leant back on the cord using it as a seat.

After hot chocolate and a biscuit we started on the rope bridge.  Between two trees we tied a low rope and a rope just above head height using round turns and two half hitches at each end of the bridge.  To get the rope tight enough there was a lot of pulling.  With too many children on it, it did touch the ground in the middle.  Once we had made a bridge just off the ground we went up a foot, but still with too many on the rope it touched the ground.  Next time a less stretchy rope we think.