FOREST GARDEN SUMMER SCHEME

Thanks to a grant from The Pebble Trust the garden provided a free play scheme for 80 Moulsecoomb children over the summer holidays.
We wanted to make the activities fun and learner led but also constructive with large elements of forest school, bushcraft and cooking.
We started each group with shelter building and den making, where we could base ourselves from in the woods. We took the children on interactive nature walks, looking at wildlife in the forest and notably the badger setts. We also collected the resources we needed for our craft projects.


For lunch we all made fresh pizza in the pizza oven, I think the final number over the summer was around 800, not all for the summer scheme!







As a group we made bracelets and necklaces, this involved tool work as well as art work to decorate their craft. This all meant that the children where introduced to the forest in a gentle way whilst making sure they understood simple things like what they can and cant touch in terms of plant life and fungi and showing them how to take resources from the woods sustainably.
We also introduced fire safety and fire lighting getting the children to make there own fires using cotton wool and fire strikers to light it. This all went down very well and we finished with marsh mellows!