What an exciting and busy day we have had at Forest School today!
We started our morning with a very special visit from Lydia, who works for Groundwork and is a recycling expert. Lydia has visited us before, and today she returned to help us learn all about composting and how we can create our very own compost heap here at Forest School. This compost will be put to good use next year when we begin planting and growing!
The children listened brilliantly as Lydia explained how to build a compost heap. They were fantastic at helping to plan and prepare the space, making sure there was enough room for our pallets to fit together. Once we had everything ready, the pallets were carefully put into position and attached together. We then used soil to weigh them down and make sure they were secure and wouldn't move.
There was lots of digging involved, which led to another exciting discovery! The children came across lots of different mini beasts hiding in the soil. Lydia helped us to identify the creatures we found, encouraging the children to look closely and learn more about the wonderful little creatures living in our Forest School environment.
One of the children discovered our mini beast identification poster and brought it to the compost heap. We decided to attach it to our new compost heap. This means that whenever we discover a mini beast around our site, we can use the poster to help us identify what we have found.
But our mini beast adventures didn't stop there! A volunteer popped in to see how our construction work was progressing and told us that she had been turning the compost bins over at the allotment, where she had discovered some fabulous mini beasts. This was too good an opportunity to miss, so a small group of children headed over to the allotment to see what they could find.
We discovered worms, centipedes, woodlice and slugs, all busy working away in the soil. The children were fascinated by the different creatures and enjoyed looking closely at them in their natural environment. It was wonderful to see their curiosity and excitement as they explored another little area of the site!
After such an extremely busy morning, it was time to stop for some lunch and enjoy a little rest. As we sat together, we could hear Steve the robin happily chirping away in the tree above us. Before long, he decided to come a little closer and hopped over to the table to observe us and see if there were any tasty crumbs to be found!
Tara scattered a few crumbs on the ground for Steve, but he wasn't quite quick enough! In a flash, a little bank vole appeared, grabbed the crumbs and disappeared before Steve had even had a chance. We were absolutely thrilled to have spotted such a special little visitor, although we're not sure Steve was quite as impressed with his lunch being stolen!
Just as we finished lunch, our friend John arrived and asked if we would like to help him with a very important job! The children were incredibly excited as John said we would need to take a little adventure around the mill site. There was just one thing we needed first, our gardening gloves!
We followed John all the way to the mill, where we discovered the biggest pile of leaves we had ever seen! John asked if we could help him collect the leaves and fill up some large bags. Of course, we were more than happy to help!
The children were absolutely amazing and filled two bags in no time at all. John was so impressed that he had to quickly find a third bag! He couldn't believe how quickly we were working and told us that we were amazing. The children had great fun scooping up handfuls of leaves and throwing them into the bags, with lots of laughter along the way.
We continued filling lots of bags before it was time to transport them over to the big leaf store. This was another exciting job, as we had to carefully fill it from the top. The children loved watching the leaves pile up, and by the time we had finished, the pile was SOOOO high! What a fantastic effort from everyone!
After all that hard work, we think everyone will be ready for a good rest! We have had the BEST day, and we can't wait to see what adventures await us next week!
