New Year In Nature Nurture

We have had three wonderful and very different sessions with our 8-11 year old group since we returned after our Christmas break. 

New children and adults have brought a lot of good energy to the group and together with the old faces we discover new spaces to explore and play.


During the first week of February we had just enough snow to sledge down the slope at great speed.

The second week we enjoyed ice skating on the frozen puddles in the glorious sunshine and discovered a woodchip pile, which magically kept us warm if we dug down or buried ourselves in the newly chopped wood.

The third week it almost felt like Spring – the sun was out and we heard birdsong and saw hundreds of crocuses and snowdrops on the hills. Some children jumped in the muddy puddles that had been frozen just last week and got so dirty that both woodchips and leaves could stick onto their clothes whilst others tried the big rope swing for the first time or dared to go higher than ever before.

In the woods an old tree house was discovered and the boys helped each other to figure out how to crawl up into the tree in order to take the old wood down and rebuild it. It seems to be the beginning of a big project, which we hopefully will be able to continue tomorrow or perhaps when we have more time in the Holiday Project? On the bus journey back to school, some of the boys wrote down a list of materials they will need to continue the project whilst others were entertaining each other by putting on their best French, Italian (Danish and Hindi) accents!

Building a Sense of Place and a Connection with Nature

A few weeks ago one of our boys was given the task of exploring the wood beyond the boundary markers. His mission was to seek out another place where we can play as our current location is soon going to need a rest so it can recover. He was thrilled to be trusted with this important task. When he returned, rosy cheeked and excited, he was full of stories about a magical place he had found. He lead me through the 'new land' introducing me to places, trees and landscape features he had discovered. This was one of those moments when so many ideas and wishes came together in perfect harmony.... this little boy now has an enormously significant sense of place and an ownership of a piece of nature that he can now share with his friends