Maple class started their session today by having a look at some items brought in by children to the class. These items were linked to the bird nests and eggs looked at in previous sessions and included:
- the nest of a bird; it had fallen out of a tree in their garden.
As a class we talked about the different materials that a bird uses to build their nest, how they are
more twig like on the outside and then softer and finer in the middle. - An ‘already hatched’ egg that had been found during the half term.
The class talked about what bird they thought the egg may belong to, establishing that it most likely belonged to a Blackbird!
On the way to the woods the class had a jar of cream that they had the task of shaking, in the hope it would turn into butter. As they arrived at the bridge they all gathered round as the jar was opened to see if it had worked:
“It’s butter!”
Sitting in the sunshine the class enjoyed trying the handmade butter on a cracker before heading the rest of the way to the woods.
Once they arrived at Forest School, some of the class chose to decorate some discs of wood which they then used a palm drill on to make a hole at one end. They found out that they needed to make sure to push down hard as they twisted the drill into the wood. When each hole was made they treaded a piece of string through to turn the disc of wood onto a necklace. This was rather tricky to do but they learnt a little trick of using a stick to help get the string through the hole!
A few of the class talked about the log dogs that they had made in a previous session which they said they had sadly lost. As they had liked then so much, they asked if they could make another one although this time they were going to be log cats! The children looked around to find the right sized piece of wood to make their cats, using a hand saw to cut the wood to the length they wanted, then decorated it with a face at one end and tail at the other, finishing it off with a piece of string to pull it along with.
There was lots of free play in the steam with the children adding to the bridge that they have been creating over there last few sessions. They also spent some time practicing their balancing skills on the slack line.
