Fire and water

Before our sessions this week I went into the Forest School and started putting in a roof into the climbing tree, as the Friday crew want to put in a floor in. The roof will also help with the remembering of not going too high when climbing. The Thursday group worked on moving the den building pile, ready for a surprise construction for the end of term next week. They worked really hard and turned the pile into a new den amidst the younger trese on the site.

After snack time we divided up, some went off to play and the rest went into the shelter to learn how to use the fire steels. We sat around the fire pit and took it in turn to open up a cotton wool pad and place it in the fire surround. After a quick demo we past the fire steel around and everyone managed to set their cotton wool on fire.

From fire to water Friday was very wet so the tarps came out and a few of the children went about building shelters. Working on measuring and cutting wood for the floor in the climbing tree we looked around for a makeshift saw horse. The climbing tree turned out to be a perfect saw horse and using a Laplander saw we cut the wood and then put it up in the tree. The boys experimented with Japanese square lashing, raft lashing and normal square lashing.

One of the projects we are going to have a go at next term is building a clay oven near the shelter. There is an old clay oven in the playing field which the group has started taking down so we can reuse the materials. The combination of rain and clay meant there were one or two children went home with a slight red hue.

Who needs a parachute?!

The two after-school sessions I run at Holt have two very different groups.  Thursdays group like doing things, so got stuck into building our bug hotel.   In the Friday gang, only a few got involved in finishing the bug hotel they much prefer to play games and only look to the adults when things go wrong.

This Thursday we were a few members down due to birthday parties etc so the adults almost outnumbered the children.  With it drizzling, we spent quite a long time in the shelter just talking and swapping stories and watching the smoke coming from the storm kettle.  Once outside it was time for cutting up pallets to make our multi storey bug hotel.  The group took the wheel barrow off and filled it with leaves, dead grass, bits of old bamboo cane and anything else they could fill the rooms with.

The Friday crew found a new use for the platform in the tree, we had made a new ‘A’ frame ladder to make get up into it easier and they started jumping out.  The drop is about five feet, so not too far and they were getting really good at landing and rolling by the end of the session.  Some of the smaller members needed a little help but then started producing some interesting acrobatics on the way down to the ground whilst holding on to Charlie’s hands.  It is nice to see play always evolving in our little space.  One of the boys who had come a cropper with a stick earlier and had sat out for a while got back in to the swing of things by pruning back an over grown hedge with the loppers and then using the raisings to build up the dead hedge around our shelter.

Our strawberry patch has been dug over and had compost mixed in so is ready for the plants in the last week before the Easter break.  We have to also build a new wood store as we took our present one down to use the walls to stuff the bug hotel before Easter.  Next week firesteels and tree houses but not altogether!

I'm stuck in a hole!



big spade big hole



checking the depth





'I'm really stuck in the hole help'.  Great teamwork getting
feet and wellies out of the hole.



With holes dug the group hoisted the uprights in place
We then added the cross piece





The two groups are making wood cookies to decorate the new archway.

Exsploring natural finds to mark make with.







This is going to be our strawbridge patch the Friday group started this turning over the turf.