This week Lilac Class went on an outdoor adventure with their Buddies! Lilac’s topic this term is ‘World War Two’. They had learned about rationing and how people had to grow as much of their own food as possible. So with this in mind, we found out that rosehip syrup was full of vitamin C and was made during WW2 from foraged rose hips. They learned how to identify rose hips and picked them carefully in amongst their thorns.
The children were given some small leather pouches (made by last year’s Lilac Class) and cotton bags to collect their autumn hedgerow finds. They were brilliant at working together with their younger buddies to support the picking identifying and helped them supportively over the stiles along the way.
The Impact of Forest School for the children is the knowledge the children have gained from the Forest School experience.
The impact can be seen through the skills, tools used, art and craft activities, observations and knowledge of the fruit, plants trees in relation to the seasons and the skills involved in learning how to play Forest School games.
This week the sale of the original Pooh Bridge was on the news, so taking advantage of the connection Hartfield has to Pooh Bridge, the group made it to the river and with their collected fir cones and sticks had some games of ‘Pooh Sticks’.
They then listened to a story about apples and how they have a star in their centre, looking inside lots of the crab apples they had found.
There was time for a game of ‘fox and rabbit’ before heading home with a whole pot of rosehips, which are now covered in sugar. Lilac will have to wait and observe the process of how they turn to syrup.
Many thanks to our brilliant volunteers who make our Forest School possible.
