Mama Beech

It's been a very mixed week.  The children started making art on the floor last week, so this week I gathered resources for them to use.  The option to create patterns and pictures was there for them to explore, with some examples of the work by Hannah Bullen Ryner and James Brunt for inspiration.  Children from all year groups had a go, and when James Brunt responded on Twitter to their photos they were thrilled!  Using Nature's windfalls gave the opportunity to further discuss why we never taste anything we find, as well as the chance to explore the colours of berries and leaves, cones and petals...  It was also the best way to get up close and personal with the properties of these, working out how to incorporate the 3D pine cones and the rolling Hawthorn berries onto a flat surface.  Plus the children we amazed at the berry of the Spindle Tree close up, the colours and the shape. Yes, we know it is poisonous. It's the first thing most children ask abou...

Is it me or has this term had at least 47 weeks in it so far? The school holidays are on an ever-present horizon that never seems to get closer! Having said that these last two weeks will now fly by leaving a feeling of incomplete…everything! The second year interrupted by Covid is ever-so-slowly heading to a close, and somehow, we have made it through again ensuring ALL the children at school get to participate in Forest School. It has been a logistical challenge, timetables have been rewritten... regularly! Staggered starts to the school day, break times altered, and lunchtimes stretched, have meant adaptations to timings for everything. Including the entire school in Forest School every week has meant squeezing in 14 sessions into these rearranged days... Weirdly, the morning’s feel short with at least 2 sessions in, the afternoons often feel longer, yet with only one session, the collective week can drag with me wondering when the weekend is coming, while at the same time mentally ...