Char flowers

There is a really fascinating process you can do with fire that is basically making charcoal but without any wood...

 

The process of making charcoal is to get something that is carbon based; so pretty much everything that was once alive, heat it up really hot without any oxygen until the water, the volatiles and the other impurities are burnt off and only the carbon is left behind. 

So much for the science part! This is actually a lot simpler than it sounds. 

Charcoal does this with wood, but what if you used flowers and seed heads, leaves and fronds....

The best way to create an atmosphere with very little oxygen is a treacle tin, or some other metal tin with a tight fitting lid. 

This tin needs a single hole in the top. Made with a hammer and nail.

The tin then be filled with the stuff you want to char. This is the method for making char-cloth. This will catch a spark very easily and was used in tinder boxes. Leaves, flowers, seed heads and any other natural thing will also char. 

The filled tin is then put onto the fire in a hot area. This will drive anything that isn't carbon out. You will see it coming out of the hole in the top. First as white puffy clouds of smoke with lots of water in, then the smoke looks dirtier with browns and eventually blues as all the other stuff is driven out.

The next stage after this is for the objects to catch fire and we don't want that. So remove the tin and poke a twig in the top to stop any more oxygen getting in and allow the tin to cool. 

When you open it up inside are brittle black gothic versions of the things you put in. 

These holly leaves were covered in beetle blues and purples. 

We tried a dandelion head but I don't know if we were too impatient but the seeds never went really black. 

It's a really interesting experiment and everything I saw for a couple of days afterwards I wondered what it would look like. It could be an engaging line of investigation for a Forest School programme. 

‘I climbed right up to here’ or Risk and Challenge in a Forest School

Risk taking is widely understood to be a natural part of a child’s development. Adults who work with children are moving on from thinking of risk only in the context of ‘the risk assessment’ which decides those things are too dangerous to allow. But are rather looking at risk from a child’s point of view, making an analysis of the risks and the benefits to create a Risk Benefit Analysis (RBA). Risks and risk taking is even better understood when re-framed as challenges. Providing realistic challenges for children and allowing them to work through the challenges they set themselves supports their development, actively engages them and helps them better understand themselves and each other.

I am always fascinated to watch groups of children climbing trees. I remember years ago working with a little girl who was very risk averse, very challenge averse. She was part of a group of voracious tree climbers and she would watch them, anxiously reporting to the adults just how high the others were climbing. One day she stood on the lowest branch and, reaching up, tied a string on the trunk. Each week she would climb up and touch that string, until one day she felt ready to reach higher. She stood on a different branch and moved the string further up the trunk.

Recently I went out with a Forest School group who had been coming to the woods since the previous summer. They still climbed to the same height limits that we had set together months previously. But there was a change in the amount of support they required from the adults present. It had started with our active support and encouragement when they wanted to climb, more often than not we would talk them down when they climbed out of their comfort zone. This moved on to them needing our presence nearby, just in case, to the point where now they were climbing and moving around with ease. One of their classmates, who had not previously been out to the woods with us, joined in the tree climbing. Within moments had climbed higher, on different trees in a very different way, shinning up the trunk rather than climbing branch to branch, wedging himself comfortably, literally out on a limb.

Children’s responses to risk taking are as diverse as the children themselves.  Douglas & Wildavsky (1982) have suggested that there are four kinds of people when it comes to managing risk: Hierarchists, egalitarians, individualists and fatalists. Mark Gladwin (2005)₁ linked these different types of risk takers to the observations he made of children at play. You may recognise these types of risk takers in the children you know and work with.

Hierachists are those people who will naturally follow the rules, who deal with risk by following the procedures. If these procedures stress safety above all then these people are unlikely to find ways to push themselves out of the comfort zone. These are the children that look to you for permission before testing themselves and conform to set parameters, like the little girl and her string.

Egalitarians have strong group identification and emphasise group solidarity at the expense of official rules. These children, like the group I was watching climb trees had developed a group norm. They had set parameters for themselves as a group and no one person in that group was likely to engage in risk taking behaviour that didn’t conform.

Individualists are independent-minded and able to defy official rules and group pressures to make their own decisions on risk management.  Like the boy who joined the tree climbing group but went out on a limb, individualist children are the likeliest to engage in risk-taking of the kind described by Hughes (2001) as “deep play”.

Fatalists are those people who submit passively to external control without commitment to group norms or solidarity and take no steps to either avoid risk or manage it.  These children are the hardest to predict how they will respond to a risky situation. I wonder if their response to risk is borne out of inexperience in risky situations. Sue Palmer (Toxic Childhood 2006) says “All real children’s play involves an element of risk, and the more real play children are allowed the better they become at analyzing and managing those risks. If, on the other hand, adults try to eliminate risk from their lives they’re likely to grow up either unduly reckless or hopelessly timid.”

By observing the children we work with and understanding their approach, our response to their risk taking can become more informed. The risks we all take as humans take are not only physical but are social and emotional.  Forest School gives lots of opportunities for risk taking and challenge. For some children just being in woodland, especially if it this is an unfamiliar environment, is an emotional challenge. The opportunity to climb, move tree trunks, run on rough terrain etc provides endless physical challenges. Using tools and being around fire provides opportunity for physical and emotional challenges for children. Being in a group without the structure of a classroom and having to communicate with others, talking with a partner when using a saw to cut wood provides social, physical and emotional challenges. When someone overcomes a challenge, be it one that is set by ourselves or by others and we are given chance to reflect on how we feel, we offer the opportunity to build those critical qualities of self worth and resilience.

It is too easy under the guise of health and safety to try and remove the risks and therefore take away any challenge in the activity or environment for the children and it is worth noting that the child’s need for having a challenge, if not met, will often express itself in other ways including what we call ‘challenging behaviour’. The importance of a Forest school activity is in providing children the opportunity to take risks and build their self-confidence.

 “Most psychiatrists agree that mental health in adulthood springs from a successful weaning of the child from its parents, an ability to deal with the outside world confidently, without overdue dependence on adults. And making good relationships can only come with practice. Through unstructured play with others, children can work through their emotions and discover their identity.

If they are never free from adult supervision, they cannot internalise a parental voice or find a way of setting their own boundaries. They have no chance to do mildly dangerous things and find out how risks should be judged. They cannot chart their own course through the minor hazards of everyday life. Nor can they explore the real bonds of friendship and loyalty that are formed through common adventures with others their own age.”

(Sieghart, M. A. in the Times, 5 th August 1995)

References:

1 Playwords (Summer 2005 - Issue 26)

*This post, written by Lily, was originally published on Outdoor Play and Learning.com  in March 2011 and is republished here with their kind permission. 

Oak Apple Ink

There is something about playing in the woods, exploring, experimenting that really stimulates discoveries.
I remember when I was a teenager reading about oak gall ink in a book on art techniques but I hadn't tried it until today.

Oak galls are fascinating little discoveries in themselves. Found on the underside of oak leaves the are created when a teeny parasitic gall wasp lays an egg on the leaf bud. The interaction between the leaf and the egg as they grow creates a gall, a little ball in which the wasp larvae can grow and eventually it burrows out and flies free.

The wasps emerge in the autumn leaving the galls behind. Last week, I picked one off the forest floor and as I was chatting with someone about what it was I gave it a squeeze and brown water came out.

There are lots of recipes available on-line which involve grinding oak apples and adding iron but this water, just freshly squeezed, made me wonder if this would work as an ink. The oak is really high in tannins and it stains really well.

I got a feather and snipped it into a quill and it worked perfectly. Instant ink to be harvested from the woods.

Maslow’s hierarchy of need or why, in winter, we always have hot chocolate..

I was just repacking and checking through the safety bag that I take into the woods with me and I felt like something was missing. There had been a lot more space in the bag over the summer but as the weather changes so does the contents of my safety bag.  So I added another bag, full of small gloves, hats and scarves. There is a well known saying that there is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes, but it is hard to really feel the full impact of that saying until you see a child, he isn’t engaging with the woods around him, but is stood, hunched, with his hands tucked under his armpits, watching the others.  “Would you like some gloves?” He nods, chooses a pair and runs off to join in. True, it is another thing for me to carry, but the difference it can make to a child’s ability to join in is worth it. I hope most children come prepared to play and learn outdoors but the reality is often they don’t. I think that part of my role as a Forest School practitioner is to try and remove any barriers that stop someone from being able to enter fully into learning, exploring and being in the woods. 

Forest Schools are a place where children can develop self confidence and self esteem and we aim for children to be accessing deep level learning experiences, where they are immersed and in the flow. But like that little boy, people can’t access that powerful, playful learning state if their hands are cold.  The Hierarchy of Needs, as in the theory put forward by Maslow, and extended in this diagram by the Australian child psychologist Louise Porter makes it clear as to why.

Porter describes how after survival and emotional safety, children look for belonging (connectedness, empathy, acceptance) and autonomy (choice, mastery, self-efficacy). Belonging is connected to fun, and autonomy to self-fulfilment. But critically the survival needs; warmth, shelter, food and drink; are at the root of all progress towards self actualisation. If we are concerned or distracted by those needs, we cannot focus on our self-fulfilment or on having fun.  

Children, even quite small children want to look after their own basic needs, they need to know what resources are available, how to use them and have the confidence in you to want to ask for them.  The process of meeting those basic needs can be a vehicle for having fun and feeling proud of your achievements. If you have ever put a temporary shelter with a group of children you soon learn there is lots of fun to be had, shaking the tarpaulin, rolling and wrapping yourself up in it, winding the strings around trees, running through a tunnel like half built shelter. Then, the fleeting moment of pride and satisfaction when the shelter is up and we are ready to get stuck in to our adventures.

For children to be given the language and opportunity to name their needs, and be given the resources to meet those needs is also very important. This little doodle that went into the recent Forest School Association newsletter explores this idea in reality; 

I have noticed that the amount of effort and the designs that children organically come up with for their shelters reflects the weather and their needs. A group of three and four year olds on a snowy morning made a shelter that wrapped them all up, cocoon like inside, protected on all sides. No room for any adults in there though, apart from just enough space to pass in mugs of hot chocolate. On the same afternoon, when the sun had come out and the snow was melting a group of their classmates made a shelter that was entirely different, much more open and spacious, no need to huddle together for warmth any more.

That is why as the weather turns I am checking the supplies of hot chocolate, rinsing out the flask and packing the little gloves into my Forest School safety bag.

*This post, written by Lily, was originally published on forestschools.com in Jan 2011 and is republished here with their kind permission. 

Child led learning or how it feels to not be in charge

Giving control over content and intent of play and learning to children

Child-led learning sounds like it should be easy, just see what the children are interested in and excited by and then follow it. Actually, when you put it like that it is easy and in the context of outdoor learning  allowing the children to lead can be wonderfully simple to implement. There is so much to discover and interact with. It is hard NOT to be learning.  Where child led learning becomes more challenging is in the personal internal battles you face as a practitioner.

I am thinking for example about a time when a group of children decided they would have a ‘bug market’ where they could trade things with each other. They decided they could bring things from home, or trade conkers, interesting leaves and other found natural things.  They asked us to provide materials for signs, sheets to set things out on and they left the session really excited about the upcoming Bug Market.

It was only after they left that we started to realise the gaps we had left open, what sort of things would they bring from home? What were the ethics of trading live insects? Who would decide what trade was fair? How would we agree the rules?

One of the key lessons I have learnt over the years is to never imagine that I am in charge. It can be a real challenge to master my ego, not listen to the voice that says “Well, I know best because I am an adult.”  Or allow the part of me that already sees how this could go horribly wrong to be too dominant. 

When the children arrived for the Bug Market it seemed that the children had all understood what the rules were to be without me having to get them into a discussion. No-one brought their favourite toys to swap, you don’t have insects in a bug market, (and apparently I should have know this!) and the adult role seemed to be to keep currency moving around as more people wanted to be stall holders than to barter. 

But child led learning doesn't start the moment you decide to step back. When I walked into a woodland with a group of nursery children, most of whom had never been in a woodland before, it’s almost like they couldn't see the potential, and didn't know yet how to interact with it. It took a few sessions of going back to those same woods, with practitioners and staff providing encouragement and permission to the children to collect things they saw, asking them to describe their finds and to interact with them, to follow trails of feathers and touch mossy stumps and smooth leaves. Then the children started to notice and to lead. A long worm stopped us in our tracks as we walked up the path. The children are acutely observant, “it is coming towards me,” “now it is going to you,” “it is a letter C for Callum” “it feels sticky, like a fish” They put things in its path to see if that changes the direction it goes in.

When, during the following session we brought magnifying glasses and pictures of the minibeasts they could find they responded really positively and were quickly immersed and interested. Child-led learning can take time to emerge, as group dynamics settle and the children gain the confidence to lead and to believe their ideas will be listened to.  This is one of the reasons why effective outdoor learning takes place over time.

They start to see your role as a provider of resources, ideas, ways and means rather than the instructor, which can often run counter to the normal relationships they have with teachers and other adults.

The natural environment is an unpredictable place, you never know what you will find. You can plan and prepare for certain learning experiences to take place, and they may happen, but what you cannot plan for and only be receptive to, is the unexpected.

"In preparing for battle, I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."

–General Dwight D. Eisenhower

Sometimes like with the Bug Market, the children are explicit about the direction they want to take, sometimes child-led learning comes about by following a particular line of questioning and sometimes an observation is the key. In the first week in the woods with another group, William picks up a sharp stone and uses it like a tool; another child watches him and copies, using a stick with the same motion. It occurs to me they are whittling. Even though I don’t usually bring tools in this soon, their behaviour intrigues me and I bring potato peelers for them to whittle with for the next session. 

Outdoor play and outdoor learning provide enough scope for each child to be following his or her own line of enquiry and for them to collaborate with other children and adults. But those internal battles I mentioned... how do you feel about how you are perceived in your role? Not by the children, but by other practitioners, visitors, parents and parent helpers, a passing head teacher or an Ofsted inspector. What happens when the lines of enquiry that the children choose to follow includes squishing living things, making weapons, having battles....? 

*This post, written by Lily, was originally published on forestschools.com in Oct 2010 and is republished here with their kind permission.