Birch Forest Schools

The last month has been a busy one for the group at Falstone. Most of the shavehorses are now finished and in use. We have begun experimenting on projects with gypsy flowers and kuksas(swedish drinking cups). This has included collecting hazel from nearby woods and using fallen birch from Dipton Mill. The skill level of the group is well beyond Level 1 and the portfolios are looking fantastic – they received a good report from both Ofsted and the External Examiner.
Plans are underway for an end of course exhibition in July at the library in Haltwhistle and a presentation evening with practical demonstrations at Falstone. The women have raised funding for tools which will help them to set up a self organised craft group which will run on after the course ends. They are also becoming involved in a Skills Exchange which is being set up in the North Pennines.
Three of the women are attending the Coppice Association North West ‘Weekend in the Woods’ on 12/13th May with me… we are really looking forward to gaining new skills to pass on.

This was the most “full on” session we have had for a while. The first Paddock session had been scheduled for Easter holidays but was cancelled on the day. Following excellent work by Lee Bray, the extended schools coordinator for the school, the promised 20 children turned into about forty individuals from about 18 families, I say about as numbers seemed to increase as the session went on!

Our location was TP woods near Paddock school and despite most of the adults having to stand when the whole group assembled, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. There was representation from different communities and from the outset the children were confident in the setting and engaged in the activities.

Managing and catering for such a large group, especially when it is our first time with them can be challenging, but with Lee’s and parents helping at snack time, we coped with this 60mph session. The lack of photos for this session is testament to how busy we were today.

Of course with that kind of ratio, the emphasis changes in terms of what and how we deliver. This is not a true Forest School scenario by any stretch of the imagination but there was excitement, fun, thought, reflection and engagement throughout the morning and I can’t wait to get back with this group for more mayhem in the woods.

 

The rain held off today but the sky remained overcast. Almost thirty people came to the session during which we turned to a traditional tale by Hans Christian Andersen, Thumbelina, for inspiration.

I altered and abridged the tale somewhat to cater to the sensibilities of a quite young group and to their concentration span. I turned the tale into a walking story, first Thumbelina was born out of a flower bud then stolen away by a frog and deposited on a lily pad in the middle of a pond. While we do have a river on site, we thought it prudent to create a pond out of a builders mixing tray. After all it would have been a shame to lose some of our attendees as they floated away, Thumbelina like, on their own lily pads.

There was a spider and a field mouse in the story and finally the bird with the poorly wing who Thumbelina helps and who rescues her and returns her home to her mother. The children and parents enjoyed the story immensely, action, adventure, crime, kidnapping, separation and a happy ending…what’s not to like. It is little wonder that these classic tales stand the test of time.

Drawing (quite literally) inspiration from Danny Kaye in the film Hans Christian Andersen, we drew Thumbelina on our thumbs and sang the Thumbelina song.

“Imagine if you were the same size as Thumbelina. What would the woods look like?” At this point we produced giant leaves on willow withies and big bright flowers made from crepe paper. The children dashed over to look and touch, to wave the leaves around and sit under them.

Everyone got the chance to make a big flower or leaf until we had a garden of over sized blooms. After the snack, the children made boat from big branch cookies and sailed them on our little pond. Others made their own Thumbelina doll out of willow pieces, wool and ribbons.

I loved this session on so many levels. There were several new families and I left feeling we had done something special to welcome them. The story worked well and had the audience gripped, there were some nice making opportunities, but my favorite aspect was getting the children to imagine themselves as Thumbelina and how it might feel to be small. The parts of the session were seamless and the energy flow was just right. I only wish that I could claim it all as my own but it was someone else’s story and Lisa’s idea in the first place.

Now where did I put “The brothers Grimm?”

We were pleased to be asked to contribute to the children’s activities at the annual St Georges Day Celebration in Hexham. This year we offered making dragon babies, dragon eyes and dragon eggs with nests. It was a busy and fun day seeing lots of familiar faces as well as a lot of new families. As usual it was a great opportunity to share the idea of Forest Schools and promote OWL and Birch Forest Schools.
The bell tent was chocka block most of the day as the weather was changeable and bit cold, and it was a comfy retreat with fun activities.
As usual the fishing barrel and hoop-la unicorn were well used. Simple and effective.
The festival itself was vastly improved on last year having a lot of local craftspeople in attendance which made it much more interactive. One of the participants came over to us to tell us ‘i think you are the main attraction’ as we had so many children working away making items.
At one point we had several children peeling bark off some fresh willow sticks with potato peelers…. an activity they initiated themselves but which quickly took off! All good practice for future knife work. Some of the parents commented that they spent a fortune on games and toys when a stick would do!!

‘Creative play is like a spring that bubbles up from deep within a child’ ~Joan Almon

The weather threatened April showers as we walked through Dipton Woods with the equipment ready for the 9th birthday party for twins Siobhan and Louis. The streams were running high and it was a matter of wading up to our knees to get across! The woods smelt damp and musky with the trees bursting fresh green with new growth, but the sun did it’s best to break through and throw shards of glistening light through the birch trees.
Once down on site we quickly set up the parachute and fire circle and prepared the games and activities.
The excited group of 13 8/9 yeaqr olds arrived singing all the way along the path and looking at the local flora and fauna.
After discussing the usual fire rules, we set our boundaries for playing on the site and kicked off with kazoo making which culminated in a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’.
It was really good to see the children organising this themselves, several of them being musical and working out which notes were which before conducting the piece. This led on to an energetic game of Mr Fox and exploration of the area.
Lunch was pitta pizza made by the children who picked wild garlic leaves to go in them, then cooked on the fire, with birthday cake for afters.
Free play time followed which developed into a wonderful big den making effort up the hill.
The day was good fun, not too showery and ended with drinks and s’mores with marshmallows toasted on the embers. Everyone was reluctant to leave having had a fun filled and purposeful day. Including the workers…..!

Today was the first Babes in the Wood Friday session. The weather was cool but the sun came out from time to time and the rain held off.

Our theme for the day was mini beasts and after the children put out the boundary ribbons and walked the fire circle, I told a story about how the lady bird got her spots. The children then visited the habitat piles and the bug hotels to look for beetles, worms and woodlice. There was lots to see under stones and logs and even the youngest children were engrossed with non being squeamish about the invertebrates they found.

After the snack, crumpets now being the norm to chase away the chill, we painted pebbles, made woolly bugs ( or in Max’s case made a scarf) and made stick insects out of….. sticks! Before generally rolling around on the grass.

A great introduction back into the weekly sessions with familiar faces and new ones.

Plants in all forms were very much on the agenda this week. With the poisonous plant test looming (a paper test not a taste test I might add) the first morning was spent refreshing our knowledge of key identity points and poisoning symptoms. In a change of pace during the afternoon, we walked through the rain armed with digging sticks and collected a range of wild edibles for preparing back at the camp.

Working together we sorted, cleaned and prepared a soup of wild roots and leaves, fried various roots and shoots and made a beech leaf salad. It became apparent that wild food is not to everyone’s taste though to be honest, some of the cooking processes were a bit lacking in culinary expertise. The general cry seemed to be “Take it back and fry it some more”

That said, an olive oil dressing with Jack-by-the-hedge and lady’s smock, poured over the salad of beech leaves and wood sorrel did taste good and was well received.

On Thursday we were treated to a full day of herbal medicine and the chance to make our own tincture. Many( including me) chose nettle as it seems that a good dose of nettle tincture cures just about everything. This was the first year that Tim Lane Msc.(Herb.Med) has delivered as part of the instructor course and on the whole everyone found him to be extremely interesting though some did struggle with the notion of using the humours as a diagnostic aid.

Friday was the trip to the coast. The weather was windy but sunny and we enjoyed several shore side plants such as sea purslane, scurvy grass and sea beet before getting into the tidal zone and foraging a whole range of sea weeds.

As per usual, Friday night was shower night, taken entirely in the light for a change. Cleaned and refreshed I set about preparing some of the forage from the day at the beach. Adding the sautéed sea purslane to rice infused with Jack-by-the-hedge and lady’s smock, I rolled it in sea lettuce. Raw it tasted very much of the sea, mineral and salty, with the outside of the sushi roll fried in a little oil, it became sweeter and reminded me somewhat of roast sweet corn.

On Saturday morning there was a peer lesson in smoking food (meat) in the field. We were shown how meat can be smoked in a relatively simple cupboard apparatus and participants could try some pre prepared smoked meat. Unfortunately owing to the plastic cooling pipe being too close to the heat source, I am assured that the meat had a toxic chemical flavour. We then built our own smokers over open fires. As an exercise it is a great one for making use of knife and fire lighting skills but in a day that is likely to be busy, it proved difficult to keep fires going and they often went unattended.

Once again, I was given the opportunity to reflect on the nature of inclusivity. Looking back to my posting from the first session, I see I had not written about how it felt during the hangi and oven cooking sessions to be unable to try any of the food prepared by/for the group and this was repeated during the smoking session.

I did come into this process with a keen awareness that being a vegan would single me out somewhat in the bushcraft setting but it still surprises me that after eight months my diet seems to be the defining characteristic by which some people relate to me.

The positive I take away is an keener understanding of the feelings of the child who doesn’t eat soup, or doesn’t want a pita bread pizza at one of my sessions and how they might feel singled out and less a part of the group. Not taking part in something as fundamental as food sharing is a powerful exclusion and I will certainly reflect on this when preparing food for any group.

At last, bark work, one of the high points for me. Interrupted only by the poisonous plants test, I spent the day stripping bask from trees (to be felled) and preparing the bark for manufacture. On Saturday a Cree berry basket, on Sunday a woven quiver. Bliss.

As the morning group had lit Kelly Kettles in their last session, we decided to get them to make mallets. The best laid plans and all that…”What’s that, is it a bow?” said D. “Well yes it is but not the kind you are thinking of” was my reply. So tool time went out of the window as we all had turns at using the bow drill set. There was no preamble, no fire triangle, no science or talk, just right in with ”can I have a go now?” and so they did, not  to make embers, not to make flames but for the simple joy of making something work and getting a stick hot.

Recently by being so focused on the outcome of  bow drill use, I had forgotten what can be done along the way, or even at the beginning to bring joy and wonder.

Even with this impromptu bit of fire work, the group still managed to saw their logs for their mallets which will be completed in the next session. As the climbing trees were greasy from the rain, no tree climbing took place. The children seemed not to mind as with wellies on they splashed through puddles instead.

The afternoon group looked at some of the plants which were edible on the way to the site with some trying nettle for the first time. After an explanation of the workings of the Kelly kettle and armed with fire steels and their cotton pads, they attempted to boil water for their hot drink.

Overcome with the success of lighting the cotton… they allowed their fires to go out. Eventually one group boiled enough water for everyone to share and the afternoon group was spared the ignominy of having a cold drink snack.

At the very end of willow planting season we managed to install a 3 meter willow dome, and two tunnel entrances on the Community Centre garden site at Thornton Lodge.

During a mammoth  seven hour session, young people from the Urban Wildlife Project and adult helpers, dug, weeded, planted and wove hundreds of willow withies to make a structure which linked up and brought together the different areas and beds.

Though the weather was cold it remained dry and fuelled by hot drinks and chip butties everyone persevered and stayed long past the usual session end time to see the job done.

Even before it was finished, the participants took ownership of it with plans to invite “The Hairy Bikers” to sit in the dome and eat food prepared from the vegetable beds. Some wanted to bring sleeping bags and camp out for the night.

“.. and if we put up some flowers it will be a colourful paradise”  

There was a steady stream of local people throughout the day wandering over to take a look. Suddenly the possibility of making something wonderful from what was just a forlorn piece of  waste ground seems like a reality.

We were all proud to be a part of it.

 

 

 

 

A week after Easter we ran the first Babes in the Wood session of 2012 as a prelude to starting weekly sessions. The day was an eggstraveganza of eggstra, eggciting activities. Following the usual safety talks and practices, I told a revised Jack and the beanstalk story entitled “Jock and the Oak tree”, handy in a wood with oak trees in it. A large golden ostrich egg and a didgeridoo found their way into the narrative and I am pleased to say that no trees were chopped down and no persons of large stature came to grief.

The weather turned colder as the session went on so we reorganised and provided hot drinks and crumpets straight away before the children (and adults) took part in an egg and spoon obstacle course. Meanwhile, the Easter bunny hid coloured duck eggs around the wood which could be found and swapped for  chocolate eggs. That said some children chose to eat the hard boiled duck eggs too.

We then played an egg rolling game with prizes for everyone. The hardy souls still present after that decorated hard boiled eggs to take home.

It did feel good to be back in the woods with the Babes and we can’t wait until the sessions restart on 27^th April.