Day 148 - Wildplay

It's half term this week so I have a bit of Wildplay work. Today was a full day of Wildplay where parents leave their children with us for the day for fun outdoors. We had 4 children today, not as busy as it could be but a good enough number.

I didn't take many photos today but we found lots of fungus, including loads of candlesnuff (which I didn't get any decent photos of)

One boy was amazed by these ivy covered trees and felt like we were in some kind of jungle or enchanted forest.

The woods we use now have a carpet of fresh, colourful leaves. A huge contrast to last time we were here in August.

We did some bug hunting in the meadow (which isn't looking so meadowy now!) and found quite a lot - plenty of spiders and harvestmen, a comma butterfly and a rove beetle.

The children had a happy half hour collecting and eating the few blackberries that were left, then they used the juice on their fingers (when they were a lot more purple and juicy than this!) to paint their faces!

We found a couple of leaves with some kind of cocoon / pupal case on them. I'm not sure which creature made these - perhaps a lacewing?

Whilst den building in the woods this morning, one girl found a stick and decided it was a dog which she named Crash and dragged around on a bit of rope all day long, treating it very much like a real dog! When we went back to the classroom in the afternoon, she asked for some clay to add a tail and gave him eyes and a tongue too!