Hawthorn week 2 Shelters

 



This morning, Hawthorn Class had a wonderful Forest School session we began our session by gathering around the welly sheds, where everyone was given a colour ID chart. The first challenge was to hunt for man-made objects that matched our chosen colour. Once we’d collected our matches, we set off down the field towards the Forest School site, looking for natural objects in the environment that also matched our colours. This led to some brilliant discussions about different shades and tones, and how colours can look so different in nature compared to man-made materials.

When we arrived at the site, we checked in with our Forest School jobs — some children handed out sit mats, others helped put up the fire blankets, and a few filled up the handwashing water. We also made an exciting discovery: when the canopy had been closed over the past week, it had become a cosy home for hibernating ladybirds! We found lots of them and tried to identify the different varieties.

Our theme for the day was shelters, so we talked about the types of shelters that animals and humans use, and the different purposes they serve. The children had fun finding their partners in a matching game — pairing animals with their homes, such as bats and caves, or rabbits and burrows. This led us to think about early humans and the types of shelters they might have built many years ago.

We then explored how people in the past might have used natural materials to decorate their shelters or their bodies, just like early cave paintings and tattoos. This inspired us to experiment with natural colour mixing — using beetroot, turmeric, spinach, and even grated chalk mixed with cornflour to create our own paints. Some children also got busy making clay and using their handmade natural brushes to paint with.

Of course, no Forest School session is complete without a few favourites! We played an energetic game of Giants, Wizards, and Dwarfs, practised our fire striking (using a little Vaseline to help the fire burn longer), and finished the morning with hot chocolate and biscuits around the fire.


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