Only made from wood; a daily advent of festive winter crafts part 1
I have set myself a creative challenge over on my Facebook page. Every day in December so far I have added a new winter festive craft made from things from the woods to a folder full of photographs. Here’s a round up of my daily ideas so far. I got this lovely idea…
Squirrel Fishing
I thought I’d share with you a little doodle I had in the last edition of the Forest School Association newsletter. This is based on something that happened with a group I was working with a few years ago. When you follow the children’s ideas you end up in very…
Sweet Treats: Baking in the woods
Well-being is really important, especially if you are working outside all day in the cold and rain. So with that in mind I thought I would share with you some of my favourite outdoor cooking treats, suitable for a day on the woods or a Forest School. You’ll notice…
Bridge that gap
I’ve written before about building rope bridges among the trees and how fantastic they are for children’s motor development, encouraging social skills and confidence and being loads of fun. What I have also found is that adults who work with children are equally as…
What happens in Forest School?
There are some projects that really stay with you. I worked with Brudenell Primary School in Leeds for over two years, helping them embed Forest School into their curriculum, and providing training and support. I also ran lots of Forest School programmes with classes…
Reflections on moving from survival to thrival
I have recently come back from a month long trip deep into the wilderness in NW Ontario, Canada. Which almost explains how quiet I have been here recently. It has been a lot to process. I have talked before about how I the work I do encourages children to challenge…
Did you play in the mud today?
There are certain elements that regularly feature in my work life; fire, tools, cooking outdoors, climbing, bows and arrows and mud! To celebrate International Mud Day (29th June) I’ve collected together this weeks adventures that involved mud. Some of them planned,…
Baui means build, speil means play, platz means place
For a few years I managed the transition of the only self-build Adventure Playground in Bradford, the Big Swing, from the statutory into the voluntary sector. Supporting the staff and managing the site through a period of transition gave me a real insight into the…
“When the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful*” or, celebrating International Mud Day
“When the world is mud-luscious and puddle-wonderful.” E. E. Cummings The fact that it is International Mud Day 2012 this month got me to thinking about the role that mud plays in outdoor learning, play and Forest School sessions I deliver. Sometimes it is a barrier….
WaKiGa – out in nature with a Waldkindergarten
I recently spent a week in Hamburg and Berlin with a study tour for play professionals co-ordinated by ip-dip.com and www.meynellgames.org. The tour took us to scrapstores, adventure playgrounds, public parks and playspaces, community provision, waldkindergarten and…
Green makes school
So the cliché goes, there are lots of things Germany does well; public transport, sausages, compound nouns… actually all these things are true, but I’ve been discovering that in Berlin and Hamburg there are some other things that are done well; challenging, exciting…
Nature transforms an egg…..or how to make green eggs
This is one of those things that I have been wanting to try for a while. I was invited to join a school’s staff Easter egg decorating competition. So I took the opportunity to dye some eggs using natural materials. In my mind, I would have time to transform the eggs…
