Christmas Feast

Last session of the term so it was cookout time.  While Helen made the fire up the rest of us went through the safety points of using a fixed bladed knife before using them to strip bark for our cooking.  It was interesting to observe the different styles of removing bark; from a child who took his time peeling the bark off inch-by-inch and ending up with a neat bare-ended stick to others who ended up removing more than half of the bark.  Once we had prepare the sticks we added Christmas bread dough around the top of the sticks and the group sat down around the fire and began to cook the bread.  This is always a time of ‘is it done yet’ with the answer of it’s cooked when it sounds hollow when you tap it.  While the group cooked their bread, I prepared special Christmas Hot chocolate with whipped cream and mini marshmallows, which went down very well with the group.  With the kettle out from under the tripod we hung a pot with popping corn on to cook. 

With our Christmas Feast finished the group sat back on the logs and checked their blood bubbles and then donned leather gloves as I went around handing out sparklers.  With everyone ready I went around and lit the sparkles with the fast fading light this looked great and the kids really enjoyed it but of course they never last long enough. 

With the session at an end the group trooped off carrying their lit jam jar lanterns they made a couple of weeks ago looking very festive.    

Who needs rules?

An interesting thing has happened at Forest School last week, one of the older boys decided that we needed to start putting our FS values into practice.  Well this week another boy took on the mantle of telling the rest of the group to ‘shut up and listen’ when I was talking.  It’s interesting to see how having some rules to work by is so important to some of the group and how they then want the rest of the group to conform.  Previously they would have also been making lots of noise and not listening as well.

While I got the fire going and a small group of boys put hot chocolate powder into cups, the rest of the group went off working on their dens.  With the new materials we got last week there is a new vigour in den building and there appears no end to this activity being the favourite at FS. 

After we had finished and had packed the snack things away a few of the children started to make wood cookie Christmas decorations.  They got to use a new tool called a palm drill, which is basically a wooden handle with a drill bit stuck into it, and most gave it a good go at drilling a hole.  Of course they also had to cut the wood with a bow saw using a sawhorse.  The children who have been to FS at the Courts over the last term are getting quite good with the saw and their confidence when using it has really grown.