Day 293 - Forest School

Today's wild time was my monthly Forest School session with Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. At the two family sessions the families had to search for some (real) nests we'd hidden in the woods and then have at close look and have a go at identifying them (using a guide sheet provided).

chaffinch nest

song thrush nest

blackbird nest

robin nest

After that we  made our own nests out of whatever we could find - some children (or parents!) used mud to make their nest, some weaved bits of flexible grass/willow and some made stick pile sort of nests. The children loved collecting nesting materials and looking for things like moss and feathers to make them comfortable!

 

Finally we played a bird feeding game where there was a bucket of pine cones (bird food!) in the middle of our circle and our ‘songbirds’ had to collect a cone and take it back to their just built nests, but there were stealing crows around who might take it before you got it back. A good, fun game. It was a good session and the children enjoyed it!

At the kids only session we played a variant on hide and seek called disappearing ninjas, which we all enjoyed, and then did some navigation with compasses, learning to read bearings and, in small teams, setting trails for other teams to follow.

Oh and there were two oystercatchers flying around all day, calling, and we kept hearing a woodpecker drumming whilst we were busy in the woods.