St Charles, 17.03.21 & 18.03.21

After the rain storms of last week, this week was much calmer weather-wise, but stormy in other matters.  Y2 kicked off with some games in an effort to exorcise pent-up energy but it didn’t quite work out.   Not only were they brim full of energy but they were also full of emotion and this was given full vent in a game situation.  Perhaps the effects of lockdown made it difficult to play together and to accept losing, and to agree to the discipline required to play an organised game .  After tantrums, fallings out, injuries (often due to lost pride) and a couple of chats about winning and losing, we thought it best to retire to the forest school area to relax and have hot chocolate and biscuits.  Things got a lot better after that, as freedom ushered in a calmer atmosphere.  The children chose to do tree-climbing; see-sawing; shelter building and a have group game of ‘star wars’.  When we reflected on the session at the end, I asked them how they thought it had gone. Expecting them to refer to the rocky start and maybe dwell on it, they said instead that the session had been great and that they’d really enjoyed it.  They seemed to have forgotten the negative and focused on the positive.  Isn’t that resilience?

Year 5 took some corralling to co-operate with games today too, and although we did manage to play our new game called ‘Secret Stone’, it was a real struggle to keep them together in a game situation.  Although this class enjoy the games, you can feel the relief when we let them go to choose.  Some made friendship bracelets; others tried their hand at willow and wool dreamcatchers; other performed balancing acts on the decking see-saw which resulted in it being broken; others climbed trees; others ‘roamed’ from group to group; and one boy discovered the beauty of the grain of wood and decided to sit for most of the time, quietly trying to peel and reveal the warm pattern hidden behind the stick’s dull exterior.

Thursday

It’s a funny day when you know that the best thing you did was to go and fetch some spades and trowels.  From the start of today’s session, we could see an abundance of energy on display from certain individuals, and some of it was quite destructive.  Wood sheeting was being whacked, thwacked and broken; large twigs were being snapped across thighs; there were fevered attempts to break bricks; trees were whipped; the apple bird feeders were being swiped at like they were pinnatas; and the fallen apples were decisively squashed underfoot.  I suggested to Mrs C and Mrs McG there was only one thing for it – an emergency dash to the gardening shed to fetch the spades.  Armed with the digging tools, I ran towards the boys in question.  Instinctively, they knew that these spades were destined for them and they ran towards me.  Have you got a mental picture?  We all knew what had to happen.  And so it was.  The simple addition of spades and trowels put all that energy to good use as they dug for England.  Their digging enthusiasm resulted in a slight incursion onto the grass of the field but I turned a blind eye to this when I saw that they had actually managed to cut up the turf into perfectly neat squares!  Others pursued calmer interests and built  a multi-level bird house/nesting centre with  evergreen camouflage stuck on with mud ‘cement’ ; a new campfire settlement appeared (the fire was automatic apparently and operated by remote control); others were deeply involved in games of imagination too complex to relate; some children pretended to be astronauts in a willow tree rocket; there was an alternative digging site – this one was for treasure – where some children were miners and another was the boss of the miners; there was also tree climbing and bird nest building.  We looked at some old birds’ nests at snack time and I told the children that I’d be making a bird’s nest if anyone wanted to join me.  Three children decided to get on board and we gathered long, dry grass and moss and lined a shallow cup with mud.  Then we wrapped the grass into a nest shape, placed some soft moss in the middle for the egg and wiped the grass nest round the inside of the cup, coating it so it was a hemisphere of mud.  One girl told me she was really proud of herself for building a bird’s nest and couldn’t wait to show her teacher.    After yesterday’s ‘Iesson’, I dropped the organised games today and it went so much better.   In fact, we were having such a good time, that there wasn’t time for any games at the end as I had planned.