Hedgehogs started their session today by talking about the season we are in “spring”. They were asked what they had noticed was changing now that we are in spring “the trees are making leaves”, “seeing ladybirds”.
The class got into pairs and we set of onto the field for a spring scavenger hunt. There were lots of things for them to find from something yellow to something that crawls. Each time they found something they added to their bucket, however when they found the something that crawls they popped it back under the log it came from. While on the hunt for things that crawl the class found a snail. They waited patiently for the snail to slime alone one hand to the next, leaving a slimy trail across their hands “it feel’s cold and slimy”.
We split into two groups, each group having the chance to come and do some pond dipping. We sat by the pond and talked about what we may find hiding in the water of the pond.
Then lying on their tummies they dipped their nets into the water scooping out lots of blanket weed, however when they looked a little closer they noticed little things moving around “look, something is wiggling”. Everything that was caught in the nets was carefully put into a tray of water, the children then used an ID sheet to work out what they had caught. They had caught some Damselfly Nymphs, Water Boatman and lots of Water Louse. There was great excitement when something a little larger was caught, using the ID sheet they worked out that it was a Dragonfly Nymph.
The children not pond dipping had a go at painting leaves and printing then onto paper, they discovered that it worked best to add the paint to the underside of the leaf. Others chose to use some secateurs to start cleaning the brambles growing next to the pond.
We finished today session by taking it in turns to find out what each other had enjoyed about forest school today-
“finding the dragonfly”
“painting the leaves”
