Graduating from Forest School

Yesterday was the tenth and last session of Forest School. Scarlett didn’t actually want me to go up there as I am mean and rather than allow her and Davies to spent the 3 hours running off in the woods I insist they sit down, learn from the rangers and do the activities. I’ve spent £7.50 each for those three hours and I want more from them that grassy knees and the secret passwords to their camps in the woods! 😉

After lots of badgering from the children and a couple of the parents they were doing some knife work for the last session and making a butter knife each. They all had snacks; two of the children had brought up cakes and brownies to share and then were shown how to make a knife and given a safety talk. Lots of the kids had difficulty focussing on the length of the talk, Scarlett being one of them. She often zones out when being told what to do and I actually watched her attention shut down. I personally think safety talks should be punchy, to the point and not too long otherwise you do tend to lose everyone’s interest.

First they all practised on sticks with potato peelers to see if they could assume safe working positions and get the knack of stripping the bark.

Scarlett was pretty good at this but she does do a fair bit of wielding a peeler as she eats a lot of carrots. Davies was slower and struggled a bit but he’s never been great with implements anyway – cutlery, scissors etc. never look comfortable and like an extension of his own hands but always clumsy and akward. He still manages to turn out creative stuff most of the time though and is always up for having a go.

All the children were given knives to use and all the adults were on high alert. I genuinely expected to see blood as they are quite a dizzy bunch of kids sometimes and I think the sharpness and dangerousness of the knives had gone over some of their heads. I stayed between Davies and Scarlett and tried to ignore the other children as there are a couple of fairly needy ones who would happily have had my sole attention if I’d given it and supervising my own two felt like enough of a responsibility ;).

They both did really well, both did well over half of their knives and the overall shape and finished objects reflected their work rather than the odd bit of helping out I did. I realised Davies’ knife was much blunter than Tarly’s having handled them both and so he swapped his towards the end for a sharper one to finish off. I think all the kids realised it was much harder work than they’d been expecting it to be, although I suspect the knives could well have been sharper which would have made it easier.

Everyone finished a knife and they all looked pretty good :). Afterwards they had a final circle time and cooked some toast over the fire to spread with butter using their new knives.

The final task was to take five or ten minutes to walk off into the woods and just take in their surroundings one last time, and bring back any ‘treasure’ they found. They returned to the circle and passed around a ‘speaking stick’ to tell of their treasure and talk about what they’d enjoyed most about Forest School.

I did find that bit all a bit like a mass eviction from the Big Brother house or the end of Brat Camp as there was much talk from the rangers about how they’d all been On a Journey and Grown and Changed during the sessions.I have to say I thought the kids who were brats were still brats, the annoying ones were still annoying (infact possibly more so for having spent ten weeks in their company ;)) and the okay kids were still okay really. They do work with young offenders and excluded kids and kids who probably never would see the forest otherwise though so I suspect it was something of a scripted last session thing which in many cases may well be true.

I did like one of the rangers who said he wanted to thank them all as he had learnt something from each and every one of them and actually I think that is true.

Davies, Scarlett and I chatted a bit about it on the way home and I think they both did learn a fair bit from the experience generally.They both did way more sitting and listening than in their day to day lives and although it was enjoyable they got a taste of being part of a class and the pitfalls of that. They had to be in the company of some kids they didn’t like, found annoying and in one case were actually a bit afraid of and developed some good skills for coping and dealing with that situation. I don’t think they got vast amounts from the crafty stuff as they are both pretty creative and imaginative anyway but I enjoyed watching those and got some ideas for nice things to sit and do in the woods next time we are camping. I think all 3 of us got more confident about campfires, cooking on them and handling tools. It was right that I attended most of the sessions as I think it maximised what they got from them although if they do another run of sessions maybe next year as they both want to do then I would stay away and let them do it themselves.

Was it worth the money? Hard to say really as I do think it was pricey and I don’t think there was a lot of value for money but it was a cool thing to do, inspired a liking for bushcrafty type stuff and was interesting to see what’s out there for when they’re a little older so I guess it was.

I do think being a ranger would be a cool job 🙂

On the way home we stopped at Asda as having been through the kids’ wardrobes I knew neither of them were very well off for summer clothes and whilst it’s foolish to expect good weather camping next week it’s equally foolish not to be prepared for the possibility so we got a couple of summer dresses for Scarlett (I do like them and I do think they look pretty on me but they’re not really me Mumma!) having persuaded her jeans and t shirts might be what suits her but in very hot weather they are not comfortable and some shorts for Davies on the same basis. I’m pleased the pink frilly phase for Scarlett only lasted til she was about five at which point she realised they are not practical for climbing trees but sometimes it would be nice for her to look like a little girl ;). She tried on some black shoes for Badgers while we were in there which I vetoed as they were a tenner and too big but she was funny about the fact they had a slight wedge heel: ‘High heels! Ooh listen they make me sound like a horse!’ 😆

Back home for some lunch and they played with some Indiana Jones figures we’d picked up in Asda for £1.50 each which agreeing to buy apparently made me the best mummy in the world – how about that eh? You can give up a career to Home Educate, spend hours facilitating their education, looking for interesting activities and trips and opportunities, ways to make their childhood a golden, halcyon experience or you could just spent six quid on plastic tat and be done with it! 😆

Then it was swimming lessons. I’ve had a potential earache bubbling away in my right ear (which is prone to ear infections) for over a week and swimming last week definitely aggravated it and I must have done something odd at Forest School as on the way home my back starting twinging too so I decided swimming probably wasn’t a great idea for me on both counts. Which was a shame as it was incredibly hot and I’m sure the water would have been a nicer place to be than the spectators area but did mean I got to watch their lesson. Davies is a good little swimmer now and is starting to develop some sort of style which is nice. Scarlett is still a bit random but has oodles of confidence and loves being in the water which is a great start.

Back home again I cooked their tea and then when Ady got home I nipped up to the allotment. I had some kitchen waste which was attracting flies to take up there and also didn’t want to risk my bike with my back so drove up which gave me an extra half an hour to do a bit of weeding along with the watering.

When I got home Ady had started dinner (bless him and also curse him, he’d have been better spending the time with the kids 🙁 ) and the kids had had a bath after getting filthy playing outside. I read some Charlie Small and they went off to bed.

Hurrah caught up! The benefit of Ady taking Davies and Scarlett over to Julie’s for the morning while I’m off to work is that they leave at 730am giving me over an hour home alone. And I only spent about half of it on bejeweled blitz 😉