Hedgehogs got themselves all wrapped up for a soggy morning at forest school. We started today by learning a game called ‘bat & moth’. The class stood in a circle making our cave, with two children in the middle one bat and one moth. The bat was then blindfolded and had to listen hard to catch the moth that was making a little sound doing its best not to get caught.
We set off for the shed to find everything that we needed to light a fire. We talked about the ‘crack’ sound that a stick makes when it is dead and how this is perfect for burning on our fire. The class filled up a box of firewood and worked together to carry it over to the fire circle. We sat and talked through how to be safe around the fire, how to shout ‘red dragon’ if someone walks into the fire circle without being invited.
A few members of the class helped to lay the fire, larger sticks at the bottom working up to smaller sticks at the top. They then had a go at using a flint and steel to strike a piece of cotton wool; they found this a little tricky. Once the fire was going we placed some popcorn kernels in two sieves and held it over the fire, listening for the pop sound to start. As it started to pop the class said, “I can see white bits” and “its jumping”. Once it was all popped we sprinkled it with sugar then it was enjoyed by the whole class.
There were six bird teddies that joined us at forest school today, they were all hiding waiting for the children to find them. Once they had all been found we talked about what each bird was, we had a Robin, Blackbird, Jay, Blue Tit, Goldfinch and Green Woodpecker. We then took it in turns to squeeze our birds to listen to the different song that each bird makes. Some children then chose to make nests for the birds, using dry grass and sticks to create their nest in a tree.
We finished the session back in the classroom decorating our own paper birds that were then pushed onto the end of a stick so that it could be flown around the class.
