The children made dens in the forest this week and talked about the qualities we need to have to be able to cooperate with our peers to build a den.

One of the groups made a den as well as a hammock and charged the others two pinecones to have a shot.

The children also learned how to pack away the den building resources carefully and neatly and put them away to be taken back to school.

We then played some forest games before heading home.

“I really liked building the den because it was fun to see what things would stick together and what wouldn’t and trying out different ways to build it.” Charlotte

“I thought it was really challenging but fun because I really like building dens.” Liam

“I liked making the dens because all the people I was working with had really good ideas.” Kloe

“I really liked building the dens because I found it really good working as a team. Our first den didn’t work out but we tried other ways and eventually made it!” Holly

“I liked playing camouflage because it was quite hard because we had our bright yellow vests on and it was hard to hide.” Rosa

“It was hard to get the hammock to work because we had to tighten it harder and get it over trees so that it was super strong.” Ruaridh

“I enjoyed having a shot on the hammock.  It was very strong.” Kayla

“The hammock was strong enough to hold adults too.” Ellie

“It was so fun making the hammock because it kept going up and down so we had to keep sorting it but then we did it.” Sarah

Here are some of our fabulous Haiku poems about the outdoors.

Today was a wonderful sunny day to visit the forest.  We admired all the beautiful colours beginning to appear.  We did a minibeast hunt and compared this to the hunt we did in our school grounds and found that our predictions were true.  We found more minibeasts in the forest to the school grounds.

We also made our own woodland characters and made these into woodland heroes.  We gave our heroes super powers to look after our environment.

The children were writing Haiku poems about the outdoors.  The children had a choice to write about anything that inspired them outdoors.  Some of the children chose to write about the air, trees, flowers, minibeasts and feelings of being outdoors. They then wrote these in their John Muir Record Books which they update daily on their John Muir experiences.

“I liked doing the poem outside because we got to write about something we like.” Sarah

“I enjoyed doing my poem about centipedes because I like them now and have never wrote a poem about a minibeast before.” Ellie

“I liked going outside to do my poem because it was easy to concentrate and write it.” Kayla

Today we planted some wild flowers in the school grounds and watered them. We also did a minibeast hunt in the school grounds and we are going to compare this to the hunt we do in the forest.  Already we predict that we will find more in the forest as we feel it’s covered, less people are around and it’s a more wild place for minibeasts to live without people disturbing them. We were surprised about the amount of different bugs we found today in all areas of the playground.

“The place where I saw a lot of bugs was definitely at the mud kitchen and under the log seasts.” Liam

“I didn’t really like bugs but I enjoyed the minibeast hunt today because it was fun as we were looking for lots of different types of bugs.” Taylor

“I found it really enjoyable because I got to see loads of different minibeasts.” Holly

“From the beginning I’ve always loved nature so today it was great to get back to it.” Kacey

“I liked to see all the different kinds of animals and flies.” Billie

“I enjoyed the planting because I don’t usually get the chance and I just enjoyed it.” Eve

“I liked how we got to go and look for different animals and I got to see minibeasts I don’t usually get to see in my life.” Charley

“I enjoyed the planting a lot as I don’t get to do it often because it’s raining all the time. It was fun today doing it in the rain as I never really get out in the rain.” Rosa

“It was fun mixing the seeds for the wild flowers and planting them.” Bethany

“I enjoyed planting because some people cant get time to plant at home.” Sarah