Forest Friday

Nests

Dalkey School Project N.S.

Session 3

Junior Infants

First Class

Inspire

The day before I sent the class a slide show of nests made by different birds in different locations. In class they discussed the materials in the nests that they recognised.

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I find this is a great way to inspire the children and give them time to think about possibilities and ideas before Forest Friday. They come talking about nests. I had two old nests for us to look at.

We looked the the materials in the nest. What was the difference between the outside materials and the inside materials? They found white long hairs in the inside. This nest came from my garden. I told how I clean the hairs from my comb during spring and leave them out for the nest building birds. The other nest had soft white stuff lining inside. What could it be? When I told them that it came from my friend’s farm where there are sheep they decided it was sheep’s wool. We used our thumb and pointer finger to see what it would be like if you only had a beak to pick up some materials on the ground. Imagine weaving a nest with just a beak. We wondered how long it would take. Do both parent birds make the nest together?

Off they ran to collect materials. We tried out sticks. Would we need bendy ones to make a circular nest? Sticks were put through a trial of whether they were bendy or snappy.

By the end of a term of Forest Fridays the children’s knowledge about the woodland is amazing. Their naming of plants, animals, fungi, birds and invertebrates is impressive but what really is impressive is their love and knowledge and excitement. I watched them pick up sticks from the forest floor and chatting to themselves saying “snappy” and “bendy”. After a while I noticed that they wanted bendy sticks so they didn’t pick up snappy ones. Their power of observation, knowing the twigs which were mainly larch and ash from they other twigs by starting with experimenting is a far greater knowledge than just naming plants.

Tasting, smelling, touching,hearing, imagining, making, wondering, noticing, observing, climbing, playing all feed into a deep understanding of the woodland.

Other materials were sought then. “Look, sticky weed could stick everything together.”

Then new ideas emerged. ” Can we play a game of sticky weed tag?”one child asked. So she explained to the others how the game is played. I love how child-led forest school is and that we have the time to include lots of ways of learning. It’s so good to see how she explained it and how the others asked questions.

Back we went to collecting nest materials as we walked up to our base.

Lots of dandelion seed heads were collected to line the nests and some found downy feathers. As we had so much sticky weed I suggested that it might be good to make wild tea with it this week.

Discoveries

Two children who were collecting materials further in the trees called me in to show me something amazing. “Look at these, what are they?” There was lots of hogweed growing and the children noticed that they had these lovely purple pods. Then we found one that had opened. The plant’s flower heads are enclosed in a pouch which gradually opens. The little bit of flower peeping out looks a little like broccoli. We will have a look next week to check them out. Someone else found buds with hairs on them that shone silver in the sun. There is so much magic to discover in the woods. From our last session they remembered how tasty the new leaves are on the beech trees.

As we reach our base there is a rush to see if there was a letter on grandmother tree. Hazel found it this week and Beatrix volunteered to read it.

Hi There!

I have been watching you during the past Fridays. I love watching the fun you have because you remind me of my family. I laid 15 eggs and out of that amount 10 have hatched.

I have my nest near grandmother tree so when my hungry chicks leave the nest they will have plenty of caterpillars to eat. My babies eat up to 100 caterpillars a day! That’s a lot of food.

You might hear them when I arrive with food to the nest they make an almost continuous cacophony of ‘tsee – tsee – tsee – tsee – tsee’.

Bye for now, I’m off to collect 100s of caterpillars,

Blue Tit

It was a lovely day to sit out on the rocks for break and listen to today’s story.

 Story – The magpie’s nest – How Do Birds Know How to Build Nests?

All the birds of the air came to the magpie and asked her to teach them how to build

nests. For the magpie is the cleverest bird of all at building nests. So she put all the

birds round her and began to show them how to do it. First of all she took some mud

and made a sort of round cake with it.

“Oh, that’s how it’s done,” said the thrush; and away it flew, and so that’s how thrushes build

their nests.

Then the magpie took some twigs and arranged them round in the mud.

“Now I know all about it,” says the blackbird, and off he flew; and that’s how the

blackbirds make their nests to this very day.

Then the magpie put another layer of mud over the twigs.

“Oh that’s quite obvious,” said the wise owl, and away it flew; and owls have never

made better nests since.

After this the magpie took some twigs and twined them round the outside.

“The very thing!” said the sparrow, and off he went; so sparrows make rather slovenly

nests to this day.

Well, then Magpie took some feathers and stuff and lined the nest very comfortably with it.

“That suits me,” cried the starling, and off it flew; and very comfortable nests have starlings.

So it went on, every bird taking away some knowledge of how to build nests, but none of 

them waited to the end. 

And that is why different birds build their nests differently.

The children couldn’t wait to get going with their nest building. When we ran out of sticky weed some children wanted more but couldn’t find any growing in out base. I reminded them about the two nests I showed them at the beginning and how they came from different places and each bird used what was in the area. So we look around the base for another material that was long enough to weave with. There was plenty of long ivy strands and they were delighted with it when I showed how they could weave it in a circle.

What did you notice today? What are you grateful for from this session? Most of the children chose to draw their responses.

First Class

This group really wanted rope bridges and hammocks today. Our two sixth class assistants put up two hammocks while lots of the children helped me put up a rope bridge. I really needed good strong people to do tug of war to tighten our ropes. There are very strong children in this class and after a few tries we got our rope bridge ready for climbing.

Two boys chose to start building nests while the others queued up for turns on the bridge and hammocks. When they had experienced this some children began finding more nest building materials to add to the ones that they had collected on the way to our base.

Drying out grass.

Sit Spot

Some children like to sit quietly in their sitting spot and others find this difficult. I find that it helps to give them the option to draw. I noticed that one boy sat in a den where he couldn’t be seen and I could hear him tapping out the sound a blue tit was making. Later I asked him what was the sound he was making. He said he could hear a bird and he tried copying it by tapping with his pencil. How amazing!

Drawing responses.

3D Drawing and Plotting – 3rd & 4th Class/ Holy Family NS – Week 9

Week 9 with 3rd and 4th Class….we have had such a busy few weeks from our first weeks with drawings through construction, structures and bridge building and all the way to Forest School and back. I was wondering what we would do today. And based on another project I am working on I decided we would look at technical 3d drawing skills. It seems like it’s more maths and science but these skills are so essential both to be able to understand drawing/ design and to be able to use drawing in so many areas of our lives. We had chat about what the students would like to be – footballer, engineer, ornithologist, ballet dancer, designer, carpenter, artist, games developer….all of these jobs involve being able to design and understand 3d drawing. Everything begins with drawing…

As an artists I begin my paintings with sketches, composition studies, observation and designs.

Claire Halpin: Yeoman Yemen, Diptych, Oil on Canvas, 60cm X 150cm, 2019 (IMMA Collection)

We did a Visual Thinking Strategies/ VTS conversation about my painting here. Opening question – What is going on in this artwork? Just some of the observations/ comments –

I think its a war….they’re being attacked from all sides – look the ships and the planes.

I think it’s a tornado – look at the fires all around the buildings there.

I think it’s like a book – there’s pages, see the corners…maybe it’s a book of wars…all the wars that have happened.

I think it’s in two parts, see the break down the middle and it was separated for a long time, I think it’s very old, and they found the two halves but put them back the wrong way around…

I think this might be World War 3….it’s the end of the world.

I think that’s a shelter at the bottom – maybe people can go there for protection from the war outside.

That picture at the bottom…it’s kind of separate to the rest – I think it’s a picture from scripture or the bible…from a different time. I mean the war is modern kind of looking at the drones but this part is from a long time ago.

This was such an great chat with this class group, there’s a lot of students in the class so to focus on one artwork and discuss for 20 mins was just brilliant. So many ideas in the class, and some students who enjoy more the conversation and discussion part than the making part of art…great to hear and listen to each other. But a good opportunity for the class to hear each other’s opinions and thoughts with neutral facilitation.

So then back to 3D drawing! Through step by step instructions on the board I explained – horizon line, vanishing point and one point perspective. I rarely do instructional “lessons” but I have found that you have to do it this way to explain the basics and principles of 3D drawing. Possibly a bit advanced for 3rd/ 4th class – but they tried it and got some basics…which we can develop on again. Here’s some of their drawings from our last week. They began with drawing one cube and then could add to it to make a 3D landscape – like the building blocks in Minecraft. Keeping it real and relevant!

Senior Infants/ Parents and Grandparents Workshop/ Holy Family NS/ Week 9

As this was our last week with Ms. Donnelly’s Senior Infants group we had invited the parents, grandparents to join us for a hands on workshop. We had a great turn out, lots of helping hands, chat and good fun making alongside each other. We began by remembering our day in Forest School -looking at some photos on the blog. So today we were going to make our own Fairy Forest in the classroom.

We made some tall trees with lots of branches and leaves for shelter to start. And then remembering how the bluebells are the special flower of the fairies as only they can hear their special ring. Using long green stems and drawing bells shapes on purple paper, we cut them out and used paper fasteners to join the bell to the stem so it could move and sing in the breeze. Now for some building. We had some sticks from the forest and remembered how we had used 3-4 sticks to start making a shelter. And we used clay as the soft ground of the forest floor. It took a bit of help to get them standing and balancing and we used pipecleaners (not from the forest!) to tie them together at the top. Looking great!

So we then needed some fairies to come live in the Fairy Forest…..more drawing and colouring and cuttings out. Paper fasteners again so the wings could flap and fly! Some had already started building up walls using more sticks and clay. So we decided to add feathers as comfy bed for our fairies to sleep after flying around the forest all day! What a gorgeous morning with Senior Infants and their parents and grandparents, busy and lots of laughs and a fabulous fairy forest growing in the classroom!

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Thanks to all the parents and grandparents who came along.

Thanks to DLRCoCo Arts grant for continued support of the work of DLR Creativity in the Classroom.

Forest Friday

What lives in the Old Tree

Dalkey School Project NS

Session 2

Friday 2th April

Junior infants 8.30 – 11.00

First class 11.30 – 2.00

Junior Infants

This week it was great to see how much junior infants remembered from last week. In our Welcome circle they were able to say the three Golden Rules for forest school. Keep yourself safe and happy, keep each other safe and happy and keep nature safe and happy. They asked about tree climbing. They are allowed to climb as high as they can reach with their hand while standing on the ground. They need to keep themselves safe so there are some things that they might need to check. Is the ground clear of rocks underneath, are the branches strong enough to hold your weight, check that the wood is not rotten.

They also remembered our crow call.

They were very excited about what tea we might make this week. As we looked across the field there were trees of lovely white flowers. We went over to check if they were cherry blossom. They were and there was plenty of them so we knew there would still be many cherries for the bird in autumn.

Some children decided to take some blossom to Grandmother tree.

On our way up to our base we found other plants that are edible. We tasted the delicious samaras seeds from the wych elm, and the children pretended that they were deer and nibbled on the new beech leaves.

We stopped to look at a tree that was rotting. How can we tell that is it’s rotting? There was lots of Bracket fungus growing on it. The children noticed that people had scratched letters and mark in it. This is called Artist’s fungus, so we can guess why. They also noticed lots of little holes in the trunk where the bark had fallen away, and shiny slime that went up the tree as far as we could see.

Last week we had a problem with dogs eating the children’s lunches so this week we decided to go out on a secret area away form people and their dogs. It was perfect to sit and see all of Dublin bay while eating lunch and listening to this weeks story.

Story – The Old Tree

The tree had grown in the forest all her long life. But there were lots of younger trees there now. They made her feel very old indeed.

‘Nobody cares about an old tree like me,’ she said. ‘I’m no use to anyone any more. I’ve got an old, knotty trunk, twisted branches and I have an ache in my fork,’ she sighed.

At the fork in her trunk, where two great branches met, rainwater had collected over the years. It soaked through the bark and made the wood soft and damp.

Then, one wild and rainy night, there was a loud crack and the branch snapped right off. ‘Oh dear,’ she said. But at least the pain of holding up the heavy branch with soft, old wood was gone. Now there was just a great scar of bare wood and the beginnings of a hole.

The fungus kept growing and, as it grew, the wood became softer and started to rot. ‘No one is going to want a rotten old tree like me,’ she sighed.

 But the beetles did. Beetles like nice, soft wood. ‘Over here!’ cried a beetle. ‘Is it soft? Is it damp?’ asked another. It was. The crumbling, damp wood was the perfect place to lay their eggs. When the young beetle grubs hatched, they ate the dead, damp wood, and made little tunnels as they burrowed through it.

It was time to fly away. They always returned to lay more grubs.

Many more creatures came to live on her. The slugs and snails and woodlice loved the damp wood, the spiders and harvestmen loved all the crevices.

Maybe life is not so lonely after all.

When we got back to our base the children were so excited to find a letter in grandmother tree.

Hi children,

I see you’re back. You must have enjoyed last week.

Have you noticed my beautiful silvery glittering trail?

I’ll tell you something funny. They call me a gastropod. I mean ‘A Gastropod!’

Do you know what that means- ‘stomach foot’? That’s because my body is like one long foot with a mouth on one end.

But my foot is very special because I have a gland on the front of it, which produces slime. This is my secret power; it helps me stick to whatever surface and is easy to slide up and down grandmother tree. Also it makes it easy to slide into my shell to protect me from the sun.

You might guess who I am?

Have a great day.

The children rushed back to grandmother tree to check as they said they were sure that they had seen the secret power of a snail.

I said that I had jars, magnifying glasses and paper if anyone would like it. Everyone was enthusiastic to go on a bug hunt as we had seen so many signs of bugs today.

The stories and letters are a lovely way to inspire the children.

One child who I had in my group last year, comes with Junior Infants as she is so interested and talented in making things from nature. I brought her a book on Andy Goldsworthy. Here she is making constructions.

First Class

Collecting cherry blossom for tea.

Weaving in daisies into a leaf with holes for a present for Grandmother Tree.

Noticing the bluebells in our base have a lot more flowers

Out sixth class assistant sets up a cafe serving cherry blossom tea. He plays the part brilliantly asking the children to pay in leaves and giving back leaf change.

The first class are also inspired by the letter from grandmother tree and the story and set out seeking invertebrates with jars and magnifying glasses. One child’s father had taught him to light a fire with a dried leaf and a magnifying glass. He came and ask me could he show the others. We discussed fire and risk and woodlands how we could do this safely. Together we looked as he showed us. Already I can see how he understood how important it was to involve an adult, how to do it safely and how to communicate this to his peers.

Unfortunately my phone ran out of battery to take more photographs of their work.

We finished with a sit spot.

Early Start and Parents/ Grandparents Workshop at Holy Family Monkstown

We had a wonderful morning with Early Start and their parents/ grandparents/ guardians last Friday. They were invited to join us for a hands on making and doing workshop with Early Start. And inspired by Holy Family’s recent trips to Forest School I planned that we would construct a Fairy Forest in the classroom. A very busy morning of first making trees with lots of branches and leaves.

We then made bluebells – the special flower of the fairies because only they can hear them ringing. Our forest floor was growing with bluebells swinging in the breeze! Now it was time to make our fairy houses. Using the sticks from the forest we balanced them together and tied them at the top so they made a perfect shelter for the fairies. This was bit tricky but with lots of helping hands from the parents/ grandparents and 6th class we soon had a wonderful fairy village.

Now time to make our fairies complete with moving wings. And now some soft feathers for the fairies to have a rest after all the building and making! A very busy and fabulous morning altogether with Early Start and their parents/ grandparents and guardians! Thanks to all who joined us for the morning and all your help with our Fairy Forest!

4th Class, Holy Family go to Forest School with Liz McMahon

This week it was the turn of 4th Class to to to Forest School with Liz McMahon. Great excitement and energy in the class before we went – what would we be doing? I usually have the 3rd and 4th Class group together for our art sessions. They are a big group when all together and in the one classroom and with a big mix in the class it can be hard to get around to everyone, there’s a lot of energy and personalities in the room! So it was great to have the two classes in smaller groups for the visit to Forest School. And such a wonderful opportunity for the students to be outside in the forest and just to hike, explore, play and build together.

We began with introductions and basic rules of Forest School – 1. Look after yourself 2. Look after each other 3. Look after nature. The group agreed they would like to do a hike, find a base, build their own shelters and explore, and make some tea. Liz brought us to a new base after a short hike. This base has wonderful views of the sea right across to Wicklow and the Sugar Loaf. We established the perimeter and boundary of our base. And then explored to see what materials we might use to build.

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The students went and found a good spot for their shelter. working in small groups. Many selected a spot around or between trees so they could use the tree as a support and foundation for their shelter. Brilliant construction and building work from 4th class. I think all the construction work we did in the classroom is paying off! It was just brilliant to watch them testing materials and structures and working together to make inventive structures. And to see them just playing and exploring out in the forest! And as two students observed…just to see the ocean…it’s like glass.

Huge thanks to Liz McMahon for bringing us to Forest School. And thanks to DLRCoCo Arts Grant for the continued support of our work in schools with DLR Creativity in the Classroom.

First Class, Holy Family go to Forest School with Liz McMahon

This week it was the turn of First Class to go to Forest School with Liz McMahon. Great excitement in the classroom before we headed of…where were we going? What would we see? What would we do in the Forest. We met Liz at the bottom of Killiney Hill and we first we got to know each others names with a game of your name and an animal sound to act it out. Lots of birds, elephants and monkeys in First Class. Liz then introduced the basic roles of Forest School – 1. Look after yourself 2. Look after each other 3. Look after nature. We then went to find a base camp and stopped and looked and listened along the way – pointing out possible fairy doors in the trees, found some pine cones, interesting sticks. We saw a squirrel running between the branches, jumping along. We stopped and listened to the bluebells….well we rang them but could not hear any ringing. That’s because the bluebells are the flower of the fairies. They can hear the bluebells ring. They use them to call meetings and ring out across the forest. So we have to be careful not to touch the bluebells.

Liz suggested we would make some tea….but what flowers could we use…maybe some nettle tea or what about the cherry blossoms. We carefully picked some blossoms and put them in the flask to brew. We marked out the edge of our base. Hanging ribbons so we would know the edge or boundary. We were going to build our own fairy houses. We talked about and looked around for what materials we would use. Starting with three sticks pushed into the soft mud we could get them standing. Fantastic to see all the students foraging for materials and building away. A fairy village began to appear.

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Then it was time for tea and a story – the fair apple tree…wonderful story explaining how there is a star inside every apple….but you have to cut the apple the right way to find it. Who knew! We tried the tea to mixed reviews – Jackie said it tasted like cardboard and water!

A very busy morning with First Class. So enjoyable and brilliant to see the students exploring, playing and learning about their nature in the forest school. Huge thanks to Liz McMahon for this opportunity to introduce the students of Holy Family NS, Monkstown to the joys of Forest School.

Thanks to DLRCoCo Arts grant for their continued support of DLR Creativity in the Classroom.

Forest Friday

Session 1

19th April.

Junior Infants

The aim of the first session with junior infants is to introduce them to our Forest Fridays. We get to know each other, we look at how we keep ourselves safe and happy, keep each other safe and happy and nature safe and happy.

We do all this through games and activities.

Journey up to our Base.

We stop along the way to wonder about what we see. We try ringing bluebells to see can we hear the bells. Some children could hear a little sound others couldn’t hear anything. This is not surprising as often humans can’t hear the bells but the fairies can. They use the bluebells to call a meeting. We must not disturb the bluebells as the fairies would not be pleased and also they are a protected plant.

We got to know the Lords and Ladies. Look, their leaves look like elves ears! We don’t touch these either. Many creatures love these but they are poisonous for humans.

Feeling how soft and furry the new ferns are before they unfold their spiral buds.

“I wonder who ate this?”

“There is a lot of this leaf eaten.”

Our Base

We walked together and decided on the perimeter of the base and put up red ribbons to remind us of the boundaries.

Grandmother Tree

Like us trees live in communities.  They are connected by threads of fungus, which link them together. In the tree community, the oldest tree supports the younger trees with this underground web of connection.

I wonder which tree is the Grandmother Tree in our base?

With roots that reach deeper and further, and with her crown way up high in the forest canopy accessing the sunlight, this tree, is called the “grandmother tree”. She provides her descendants and relatives with key nutrients and other resources that they cannot reach themselves.

The grandmother tree also sends warning signals about approaching threats, such as parasites or insects that younger trees have not encountered yet.

The oldest tree that serves this role can be connected to hundreds of trees at once, increasing the survival of seedlings and the health of the community.

When these large old trees are dying, their final act of care is to send key nutrients and other resources to the other trees via the fungal networks.

We found the grandmother tree in our base. She is very wide with lots of branches off her main trunk.

Wild Teas

The children loved the idea that they could make their own tea from plants in the forest. They were all sure that they loved the taste but they were all adventurous and observed the colour of the tea, smelt it and gave it a taste.

Activity

Make a creature for the grandmother tree.

The children found all the parts that they needed to make their creature within the base. This is where they begin to observe the plants, sticks and seeds in the woodland and learn about properties of plants. Through activities, tea making, wondering, stories they gain a very rich knowledge of the woodland.

They could use a small piece of natural clay to put all the parts of their creature together. Some had time to play with their creature on the grandmother.

Options

There is time to choose free play, activities or chilling out in a hammock.

First Class

It’s always a treat to observe how classes who have been to Forest Fridays engage with the environment. I find that my main job is remind them of the structure, provide opportunities, and be a timekeeper.

Each child was given a “ticket”, which was a leaf or flower that is available along the route to base camp. On their walk to the base they looked for “matching tickets” along the way.

Collecting gorse for wild tea.

Conor found a letter on grandmother tree. The children took turns to red it.

Hello Children,

Welcome back to the forest!  It is wonderful to see you all again. Like the young trees in my forest, you have grown taller, stronger and wiser in the last year.

My question for you today is… what makes us plants grow?

Did you notice how the plants all around the forest have grown new leaves? Not so long ago in winter, the ground was bare. Now, it is a carpet of green.

The sun, our dear friend, has woken up the forest from its winter sleep. As spring comes, the sun stays in the sky for longer and we have more sunlight.

Us plants use that lovely sun to make food in our leaves. Our leaves are like food-making machines that need sun, water and air. We use that food to grow tall and strong.

You humans can also enjoy this food by picking our leaves to eat!

Have fun in the forest!

Yours kindly,

Grandmother Tree

Hut building, making creatures and bug hunts. The children choose what they want to do. They are so experienced. It’s so interesting to observe them working and communicating with each other.

Sit Spot

3rd Class, Holy Family go to Forest School with Liz McMahon

Great excitement in 3rd Class as they arrived to Forest School with Liz McMahon. We met Liz at the bottom of Killiney Hill. We began with introductions using our name and an animal sound or action to go along – from wolves to lizards to snakes and monkeys we had some great sounds and actions! We then agreed that pigeon sound would be a good call for our group that when or wherever you are in the woods when you hear this call you return to the base and the forest leader – Liz.

Liz introduced the basic rules of Forest School –

1. Look After Yourself
2. Look After Each Other
3. Look After Nature

It is very important that all class groups are familiar with these rules before entering the woods. We talked about what we might do in the woods – exploring, games and building? Mason asked if we could build dens? We agreed this would be an excellent plan! So as we went up the hills we would look for materials we might need and for our dens. We got to our base camp and explored the area. Where we could climb, where there were trees and wood we could use for our dens, where it was muddy, where there were rocks or hollows we could use for our dens. We would divide into smaller groups. Noah suggested that the boys would collect the wood while the girls would arrange the dens….we decided this would not be a good idea. And one thing we realised very quickly was that we needed to work together. To help carry, to help balance, to help build. It would only work if we shared the jobs, shared the materials, shared our skills and helped each other….cooperated.

It was just magic to see the excitement, energy, play and fun that the groups had. They worked so well together and were so proud of what they built…and most importantly built together. Being kind and sharing with each other is something that this class group really struggle with in school. And maybe being out in forest school in a different environment gave a chance to be different for that time.

Niamh Murphy, teacher –

“Thanks so much for the loveliest day….eternal gratitude to Liz. Seeing my class successfully complete that 30 minutes of co-operative play has made my year….”

Just wonderful – thanks so much to Liz for bringing us to Forest School. It really is a wonderful and important opportunity for the students in Holy Family, through the Creativity in the Classroom to experience Forest School, being outdoors in nature and exploring….even just for one taster session. It opens their eyes and minds. Thanks Liz.

Thanks to DLRCoCo Arts Grant for the support for the work of DLR Creativity in the Classroom.

Senior Infants, Holy Family go to Forest School with Liz McMahon

How exciting for Senior Infants to go to Forest School with Liz McMahon. It was just brilliant altogether.

Great excitement in the classroom before we even got on the bus. We got to Killiney Hill and Liz met us there. By way of introduction so we could get to know each other Liz invited all the children to introduce themselves using their name and animal sound or action….lots of monkeys and bears!

Liz explained to us the basic rules of Forest School –

1. Look After Yourself. 2. Look After Each Other. 3. Look After Nature.

With these guidelines in mind we headed off up the hill to find a base camp. Once we found a good spot we walked around the edge to explore the plants and trees we could see. Liz showed us the bluebells – we couldn’t hear them when we rang them because only the fairies can hear them. When the fairies want to call a meeting they ring the bluebells and all the fairies in the forest can hear them. We definitely were not to pick these flowers! We climbed a rock – using our hands and feet to pull us up. We found some fairy holes in the tree trunks and even some fairy swimming pools.

It was time to make tea. We gathered some bramble leaves – just the very small, new leaves we could pick because they had no thorns or prickly bits! Story time and snack time – Liz told us the wonderful story of the Apple Tree trying to reach the stars…..and how there is a star is inside every apple! How wonderful!

We tried the tea….mixed reviews from the Senior Infants but they ALL at least had a taste!

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Next it was time to build our Fairy houses – Liz had sent on images of fairy houses to give us ideas as to what we could gather and use to make our houses. Three or four sticks to start, pushed upright into the soft muddy ground gave us a good foundation. A whole village of fairy houses began to emerge….beautiful little structures, constructed and decorated with comfy beds inside.

An absolutely wonderful morning in Forest School with Senior Infants. Thanks very much as always Liz McMahon for bringing us! So much to take in and enjoy! And great encouragement for Senior Infants to come back again to Killiney Hill and explore!