Cancel or hide in the school hall?

With gust of wind of up to 54 miles an hour forecast we took shelter in the school hall for safety this week.  We started by coming up with some Forest School values for which points will be awarded by the group.  The person with the most points would get a reward at the end of term.  The group came up with some good suggestions such as respect for each other and the environment, supporting each other, and trying and not giving up.  It is great to see how the group have taken on the Olympic values they learned back in the summer.

To get everyone working together we did some cooperative juggling, we started with one ball.  You play by standing in a circle and the first person shouts out the name of someone opposite them and then throws the ball.  The ball then zigzags across the circle until it comes back to the first person to throw it.  Once we had worked out the pattern we introduced more and more balls until there were balls flying in all directions across the circle.

With some energy burnt off we got down to making some jam jar lanterns to light up the den when we do get back outside.  First thing we had to do was put a handle onto the jar, using wire we twisted it around the neck of the jar and then we took a loop over the top and attached it on the opposite side.  Using glass felt tips we drew designs on our jars, there were some diverse scenes marked out from Christmas and Hanukkah, abstract to monster eyes.  The designs were filled in with glass paint and then set to dry but before we left them we put night lights in the lanterns and turned out the light so we could see how they are going to work in the den.

After we had finished our hot chocolate I demonstrated the Mexican craft of ojo de dios or God’s eye.  You take two sticks and tie a clove hitch to one and then making a cross you then wrap the string around each point of the cross working out from the middle.  We are going to make some of these to decorate the den in preparation for the upcoming winter festivals.

 

A little bit of talent, a lot of hard work and a sack full of positive attitude

To get everyone working in the same space and doing a similar task today the challenge was set to make a clay monster on the wall.  There was even a prize to encourage those creative juices, for the best monster voted for by the group.  Most got stuck in straight away, one or two were worried about getting dirty playing with the clay but with a little time started smearing clay on the wall too.  Once everyone had finished and cups of hot chocolate had been drained each person told the group about their monster and what it could do.  We did not always show good listening skills and as a group this is something we do need to work on, as quite often we have to sit in the log circle waiting for everyone to simmer down before we can start the first activity.  We talked about respect and how we should act if someone else is talking and we will be working on this in the next couple of weeks.

One of the boys monsters fell off of the wall and he was all for packing it in as he felt he did not stand a chance of winning anyway.  He was encouraged to have another go and to give him time to finish we agreed that we would come to him last.  It turn out that he won with the most votes for his monster and he later showed amazing sportsmanship by sharing is prize with two older boys who got rather upset at not winning.

It has been interesting to observe how the different members deal with competition from the boys who were in tears because they did not win to the boy who doesn’t like competitions because he never wins because he thinks he’s rubbish at everything.  I think we need to work on this and find away to get the group thinking positively about competition that winning is nice but not everything and that taking part can be fun and that it is important to have a positive attitude and aim for a personal best.  So much from one small Milky Way bar to work on. 

Smores and Monsters

We are back after the half term break, as always its always a surprise to see who is going to turn up to the first session!  We planned on 12 and ended up with 13 children so off we go on another adventure.  Den building is still the big draw so sticks and logs are being moved around as different sub groups start building new homes for this term.  One of the girls decided it was time to get house proud and so made a broom.  She started by collecting some twigs and then found a stick for a handle we then looked at how she could tie it all together.  The whole of the group went of to collect wood for a camp fire and came back with an array of sticks for the fire and to go into the store.  While we waited for the kettle to boil, we made toasting forks for cooking marshmallows on.  With toasted marshmallows squished between two chocolate biscuits and a cup of hot chocolate the group were quiet for two minutes.  With the cups folded away the group got on with playing, a group boys have invented a monster called the Grinch.  This includes a group of bushes that have become the Grinches lair and the boys go around tracking the monster developing the game as they go.  Next week we are going to bring the Grinch to life by making faces from clay.

Not yet Drumming

With the front now added to the winter shelter and the flap door, we are safe from the rain unless you are me and you have to sit under the chimney!  With the rain coming down we crowded under cover to carry on working on our drums.  We are learning to sew and this is throwing up lots of problems which the group are learning to solve.  One of the problems is threading the needle this is good for developing those fine motor skills and then learning that pulling too hard on the needle means you need to rethread it as you leave the cotton behind.

With the rain stopping we hung the drums in the roof of the shelter and we went out to play in the FS area.  Dens have been the big thing this term with a group of the children adding more and more to their den.  This week they added a wooden floor using some pieces of plank left over from the Campfire event held at the school a couple of weeks ago.  Another group were working on their fallen wood den; this group then divided and the break away group went on to build yet another den.  By the end of the session we had three dens all completely different.  It is good to see the problem solving that goes on during these building projects, it’s not just about how the den is put together but also social problem solving as the group learns to communicate their ideas.  Along with the den building a couple of the children started to build a sculpture using sticks and string aiming to get it as high as they could.

We finished the session with hot dogs followed by hot chocolate around the fire we discussed next term and we are going to start off with a bonfire with marshmallows and as it is going to be just after Bonfire night we may even have some sparklers.  

It rain we stayed dry

This morning the rain came in and stayed all day lucky the shelter is just about finished and I added two extra panels to the back but there is talk of needing a door.  How do you fit a door to a triangle opening? - answers on a postcard please! 

So we all squeezed into the shelter and started adding the skins to our drums that we started last week.  Unfortunately the cord we were using is too thick to pull through the skins.  The drum skins were decorated and next week we will sow them to the frames with thinner cord.   One of the boy experimented with tying the skin to the frame but found it kept slipping off.

In the middle of the shelter we have a small fire surround so that we can boil a storm kettle which takes no time at all.  While I prepared the kettle the group sat around and told stories some silly, some funny, some scary and some very short.  We were even treated to some singing of sea shanties from some of the children from Beech along with a little bit of Queen ‘We will rock you’.

With cups cleared away we started our next musical instrument, part drum part shaker.  The body of the shaker is made from an old hot chocolate tub with a picture drawn on sailcloth on the inside.  The children then went off to find things to fill their shakers with.  To hold the contents inside we added a skin of rip stop nylon held in place with elastic bands.  With a found stick to drum it with, we sounded very musical.  

Tell us a story

This morning the rain came in and stayed all day, luckily the shelter is just about finished and I added two extra panels to the back but there is talk of needing a door.  How do you fit a door to a triangular opening? - Answers on a postcard please! 

So we all squeezed into the shelter and started adding the skins to our drums that we started last week.  Unfortunately the cord we were using is too thick to pull through the skins.  The drum skins were decorated and next week we will sow them to the frames with thinner cord.   One of the boy experimented with tying the skin to the frame but found it kept slipping off.

In the middle of the shelter we have a small fire surround so that we can boil a storm kettle, which takes no time at all.  While I prepared the kettle the group sat around and told stories some silly, some funny, some scary and some very short.  We were even treated to some singing of sea shanties from some of the children from Beech along with a little bit of Queen ‘We will rock you’.

With cups cleared away we started our next musical instrument, part drum part shaker.  The body of the shaker is made from an old hot chocolate tub with a picture drawn on sailcloth on the inside.  The children then went off to find things to fill their shakers with.  To hold the contents inside we added a skin of rip stop nylon held in place with elastic bands.  With a found stick to drum it with, we sounded very musical

A warning from the Gods it’s time to get the den weather tight

Well we just missed the rain mainly due to some slow getting ready to go out today.  Once out we had two big bags of wood collected for a campfire event on Saturday to put away in the wood store (hoping there will be wood left over for us).  The group start off working individually but as they got into the task they started to develop ways of working together by passing the wood along a line from bag to store.  Helen managed to get some dry wood from the store before the new damp stuff went in so there was a fire and hot chocolate later in the session.

We continued on the wet weather den adding sides and log seat and an area where we can boil the storm kettle.  It is beginning to look quite snug we do need to add a few more pieces of tarp to make it really watertight.  The group are thinking of ways to decorate the inside so this will probably become a wet session project.

We have two play dens on the go at the moment one being built by manly year twos and is free standing made from fallen branches.  The other is being built by manly year threes in the group and is in the hedge.  It is really quite interesting to see how the two dens differ, the hedge den has a swept floor and furniture and has a real narrative about it and the game is about how they use the den.  The free standing den is all about the construction and how it fits together and the play seems to be in the building.

Along with the den building some of the children are making drums loosely based on Sami shallow drums.  Instead of birch wood steamed and bent into a circle the children harvested willow and wove it into rings.  Next week the will stretch fabric over the rings and sew it into place and then decorate them.  We may turn our hands to making some shakers too.