Wheely Wild Forest School

January is coming to an end and here is what we've been up to at Forest School:
We embraced the low temperatures with moving our bodies a lot! The children love long rope jumping and we found that it's the best way to warm up quickly, along with building coordination and strength - not to mention all the fun wipe outs, giggles and cheering on!
After all this high intesity jumping, it is nice to rest a wee bit in one of our 'tarp cities', that our busy construction crew has rigged up.
We also walked down to Duddingston Loch to explore the frozen landscape, searched for animal tracks and fed all the amazing birds, that call this beautiful nature reserve their home.
Preparing and cooking food in the outdoors is such a nurturing activity, not just for our bodies. Maybe we should put together an outdoor cooking recipe book?
On our session on Friday, we came upon the first heralds of spring. The official start of spring is only 8 Fridays away, yipeeeee!

This is also a very special month for Rowanne and myself, because we are celebrating our 4th Wheely Wild Forest School Birthday!
A big thank you to all the families that supported us along the way and who have trusted us with their young humans to explore and fall in love with the more-than-human world 🌳🍄🐌🪱🐝🦎🦆🦔🦇🌲

Happy new beginnings.
Happy new dreams.
Happy new discoveries.
Happy new adventures.
Happy new wishes.

Happy New Year!

What a month we had, exploring different things to do with apples 🍎🍏

In the last 2 weeks we've been busy foraging brambles for eating, and also for making berry ink. We discovered that wee sticks make great dipping pens and that some berry juices change colour when they dry ... it's magic ✨
We made bramble sauce and enjoyed it smothered over a baguette and another time, with cream the children had whipped themselves ...it tasted like summer sunshine 🙂

Hello, we are back! After a great summer full of adventures and lovely time spent with family & friends, we are happy to welcome you all back to our wonderful woods at Bawsinch Nature Reserve 🦋🐌🌳🍄

We had such a great May!
We started with celebrating Intl. Harry Potter Day in style, next came hedgehog awareness week, followed by many birthdays with mud cakes and the arrival of butterflies in our forest! All this in beautiful sunny weather here in Scotland ☀️

We used the solar wood burning as a special activity to talk about the danger of causing fires in this dry weather. Glass bottles and other reflective objects in forests can magnify sunlight, focusing it onto dry vegetation and potentially starting wildfires. To prevent this, it's important to leave not trace and avoid leaving glass on the ground.

The children have also been practising catching butterflies with our special net and have shown such patience, calmness and tenderness towards these delicate winged insects 🦋. We came up with an idea for a butterfly feeder and added the power drill to our tool repertoir!
We wonder what we will make next? 🙂

Happy Easter & Hello Spring!

We have been busy making, playing and celebrating spring, life and new beginnings in nature.

Happy World Art Day!

Art is something
that
makes
you
breathe
with
a
different
kind
of
happiness.

Anni Albers

May your days be merry & bright!