Happy New Year lovely parents and readers! I hope 2017 has started well for you all and I'd like to personally offer a warm welcome all of our new Den room families! I look forward to sharing all our Forest School adventures with you over the coming months. We've jumped back into the outdoor fun with plenty of work to keep our bodies warm and the site looking ship shape and ready for 2017!
The first two weeks at Free Rangers have fallen under the 'OddJob' category. Basically, all the jobs I wanted to get done before Christmas! We began our shorter week back by tending to our fire pit. It gets a fair amount of use, especially on our Holiday clubs and during the Winter months can get very slippery. I don't need to tell you why it is advantageous not having slippery footing around your roaring fire. It was also a chance to get the children to interact with each other and bond in their new Forest School groups. They would need to work closely together in order to push and pull our trolley down to the farm where we loaded up with some wood chip, kindly donated by a one of our local tree surgeon Dads at The Tree Surgery - (Thanks Tom!) We then carted them back up to the fire pit and sprinkled them around to create a safer, and dare I say it, better-looking fire pit as well!
To fully utilise the use of the trolley, the children got to ride in it too, which was really good fun; the children monitored and problem solved the turn-taking themselves. We don't often venture to the farm, but the children took this opportunity to seek out our hairy and feathered neighbours as well as the other interesting sights to see. However, as a result of these 'distractions', the wood chipping took all week, but I guess that's all part of the exciting learning experience of playing in and around a farm, so I can't be too irritated...
In week 2, we looked toward the skies. Winter brings hardship for many of our feathered friends so it's incredibly important birds get enough food and energy to power their frantic flight and to give them a fighting chance to survive the cold and inclemency of winter. Before Christmas the children were set to task to build and install some wooden bird feeders. If you missed it you can catch up here: Building Bird Feeders. The children used tools autonomously to create some great bird feeders and then proceeded to fill the feeding holes with a mix of lard, quality bird seed, oats, and to top it off, some dried meal worms. A gourmet feast for those lucky birds! We discussed why there's a need to feed the birds throughout the winder months, and why certain places would be better to hang the bird feeders. We were also lucky enough to catch the glimpse of a few sparrows and our friendly neighbourhood Robin coming to feed from the children's hard work - which really cemented the experience for a lot of the children. If only it happened every time, alas, the children make a such a racket whilst they're outside. Bird watching isn't always an easy one with under 4's...
A great week of teamwork, cooperative problem solving, exploring the hidden and less trampled areas of the farm and learning how to deal with the cold! Brrr it was chilly! But both the birds and myself are very grateful for all the hard work and dedication from the children.
Thanks for reading as always.