21 five year olds and a lot of water!

We had 21 four and five year olds visit the wood this week.


Can you spot them among the trees?


They had a range of activities planned for the day.

Bug hunting (see bees, bumble bees, butterflies and a variety of other insects)
Observational drawing
Treasure hunting for interesting leaves and sticks!
Toasting marshmallows
and due to a huge amount of water, lots of boats and dam building and some very very wet, muddy and delighted little people.

They even built a castle. Here they are collecting hazel sticks for the walls and doors.



Good enough to sleep in? They are coming back in the summer to put on a roof.....

What great children, with such a love for nature. I wish I could publish more photos of their delighted faces. Those of you that know the school, I guess you could check the school website for pictures from time to time!

The weather held out for us for most of the day and was even sunny til the last moment. Then we got soaked. How many people can you fit in our shelter? 21 children and 7 adults ;-)

Really looking forward to the next visit
Tracy

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School visit

Falling trees, fires, mud, holes and a class of four to five year olds? No problem! :-)

The school visit was a great success, Tracy and the other adults took the class on a walk round the wood to see all kinds of stuff, including me coppicing, then they all came back to the camp to play at making dens and helping get a fire going using some bellows. After lunch they toasted marshmallows on the fire, which went down well!

In the afternoon they helped me fell a tree! We did this by roping an easy-to-fell chestnut to an oak (two tree lengths away) as a an anchor, and then letting the kids do the pulling on the rope after I'd done the felling cuts. All heavily supervised of course! Here's the video:

The neat thing is that after felling the tree I used it to make a bench for them - we'll deliver it to their school shortly.I'm looking forward to seeing the drawings and writing that the kids will no doubt be doing about their visit to the woods!

Before they arrived I did a couple of hours coppicing along the footpath, I'm just about up to the holly tree (which is staying), and on the other side I'll meet up with Tracy's work area:
I also saw something interesting in the cant we cut last winter - honeysuckle making its way up the new growth on a coppice stool. I guess it can keep up with the chestnut to some extent, so maybe we'll have a paradise for the White Admiral butterfly soon?
Right, off to the desk job for a couple of days, then back in the wood on Thursday and Friday...

Mike

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