Bug book hotel

I have spent an inspiring couple of days in Scotswood Natural Community Garden. It's a stunnning place on so many levels; just two to three acres in very urban part of Newcastle, thriving with trees, flowers, birds, insects, foxes, ponds and people.

The garden is a real treat for the senses, with lots to discover. I was taken with these book bug hotels that Hive Arts made with the Garden for their Pollination Street project.  

So much so that as soon as I got home I started hunting through the bookcases and garden for suitable materials. 

The first step was to drill a few holes into a log from the firewood pile. 

I chose a few different hole sizes. This sort of habitat will be appealing to a range of small creatures like ladybirds, their larvae, lacewings and solitary bees. 

Then I chose a book with a hard back cover. This was a really tricky thing for me. I'm a real book worm and was always told that you should never do bad things to books (or paintbrushes). But I overcame my conditioning, found a book on Ecology that was very out of date and I think the author would approve of it becoming a habitat!

The last ingredient was a bundle of hollow stems from plants that had died over the winter. When I tidy up all the dead stuff in spring I keep this for fire lighting so I still had a ready supply. You could use bamboo canes instead of hollow stems. 

Using a drill I made holes in the spine of the book. Then got a stick with two pieces of long wire wrapped round it that would hold everything together. 

Materials assembled! I used quite a lot of trial and error as well as some pliers to get the wire tight enough and to make sure everything was securely held together. I started by threading two wires through a hole drilled up through the log, then took both wires round the bundle and then through the book. Pushing extra stems through the bundle helped make everything tight and I could use the left over wire wound together to make a strong hanging hook. 

With everything assembled it was ready to hang. I chose a sheltered spot in a tree out of the sun and weather. Hive Arts were inspired by Alec Finlay's 'Bee Library' at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. 

 I hope they like their new home.

Walking alongside

Sitting around the fire at a recent Forest School conference a fascinating discussion developed about the nature of the pedagogy we employ. My friend Annie, of Get Out More, remembered a conversation she and I had had a few years ago. We had been discussing the amount of knowledge that we feel we should have in order to help someone else learn. She had said to me that she had noticed something that had helped her, the realisation that you only need to be one step ahead of where the learners are. We laughed when she recalled that my answer had been "One step! As much as that?"

As I reflect on this conversation later I realise that there is a deeper truth in this idea, held in the approach to learning employed in Forest School. If we look at the word 'pedagogy' it's roots hold the secret of the skill we that we try and master, the "science and art of teaching"; 

In Ancient Greek and Roman culture the pedagogue was the adult, often a trusted slave, whose role it was to walk with the child in the street, carrying their bags and modelling how to behave in a range of situations. He or she was not the teacher who directed the acquisition of subject knowledge. The pedagogue was literally the person who walked alongside the child to the place where they learned. Maybe one step ahead, if as much as that.  

My husband and our long legged dog love to go striding out across the moors near our home. Both covering ground at great speed and exhilarating in the wild weather. I go with them sometimes but it requires careful negotiation. I have a tendency to get distracted; an abandoned egg shell from a moorland nest, a wildflower blooming in the moss, concentric circles of vivid lichens. Then, when I look up they are gone. Little specks away up the hill, (always uphill) and I have to really motivate myself to catch up. I arrive, out of breath as they wait patiently, ready to move on again.

When we try and keep pace with each other, it is much easier to get into the flow of walking. I have to walk a little faster and push myself. He has to pause and take notice of little things. The dog runs in circles around us both. But we are walking together, maybe one of us is one step ahead, if as much as that. 

This is the ideal that I try and strive for in my own practise and in the sharing of my knowledge. I try to walk alongside the children. Delighting in the observations they choose to share with me, encouraging them to push themselves a little. Rather than rushing ahead, leaving them to struggle on their own, expecting them to keep up.

The more I think about this the more I appreciate the woods as a place of playful learning. Where we can create the time and space so children and adults can learn alongside each other. That learning and developing ideas with people does not mean that we are making it up as we go along, that we are lazy or unprepared but rather we use our skills and expertise to stay with the learners. Maybe one step ahead. If as much as that. 

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.