This summer I was in charge of Minsmere’s Summer holiday club ‘Wild Woods’.
In theory, I was taking a leaf from the book of Forest School which encourages holistic child-led learning in nature.
In practise, I essentially spent every Friday morning playing in the woods!
While leading the event was pretty daunting at first, it quickly became the highlight of my week, and I enjoyed the envious looks from some of my colleagues as I came back from each session usually smelling of bonfire and with muddy tribal marks on my face.
Plan? What plan?
Now this was something which, at first was rather unnerving, and then felt suddenly very refreshing: not having a plan.
When you knocked on your mate’s door after school to ask if they could play out, did you have a plan? Possibly – you might have wanted to turn the tree house into a pirate ship and sail to Bermuda, or find out if that rope swing you built at the weekend was still there.
A plan – perhaps. But a schedule or list of session objectives? It’s unlikely.
And that was kind of the idea of Wild Woods, to allow the group a safe space where they can get back into play mode, and use nature to inspire them.
We took equipment with us – the ‘wheelbarrow of dreams’ as I called it, packed with bug pots, ID sheets, gloves, rope, tarpaulins, fire building kits, biscuits (very important).
What really amazed me was how little equipment we actually needed in the end.
For a couple of the sessions I would set up something beforehand as a ‘hook’ for the children, wondering if I left a rope tied between two trees, would someone have the initiative to throw the tarp over it to finish the shelter I started?
No, because they are children, it was not raining, and there were far more important things to be making.
‘Hey… a zip line!’ ‘Can I have a go?!’
My shelter did not get built, and rightly so.
Time to play
In a world where children seem to be growing up so quickly, I have to say I was slightly worried that some of the older members of the group might actually have forgotten what ‘play’ actually is, and how to do it.
Part of the group was made up of boys on the brink of teenagehood. They did not care for playing hide and seek, or making small houses for woodland creatures (so uncool!). In fact, what they desperately wanted to do every single week was to cut up wood, and make a fire. So we showed them ways to structure the wood, what makes great tinder, how to use fire strikers and best of all, how to cook damper bread over a fire.
For some, ‘play’ came a bit more naturally – fallen logs would become part of an extensive obstacle course and then subsequently a floating refuge if anyone suddenly shouted ‘the floor is lava!’
My favourite of the six sessions began with me asking, en route to our usual log circle, if anyone would like to take a quick detour to a large fallen tree I’d spotted next to canopy hide.
I’d envisioned that we’d stay for about 10 minutes, do a bit of clambering over the trunk and then the draw of wanting to light fires would overrule and we’d be back on our way.
In the end we spent the whole 2-hour session at this fallen tree: making a rope swing, ‘abseiling’ from the top of the uprooted base, looking for fungi which was growing from the roots.
It was like being allowed to climb a tree was suddenly the most exciting and empowering thing in the world. And it was awesome!
Photo by Nick Cunnard
One thing I learned this summer from my Wild Woods experience is that children still do, definitely know how to play. And as responsible(ish) adults, it is our duty to keep providing these spaces. For me, i'm really excited that I can keep providing these types of opportunity at Minsmere.
Overheard at Wild Woods:
[Sitting in a tree] 'Can we go to France again this week?' 'Perhaps, if the wind is blowing the right way'
'Can I show you some puffballs we’ve found?!'
'I have made fire! Who wants fire? I’ll sell you some fire for 30 dry sticks. Or bread… bread is fine.'
'We found a caterpillar last week! I think it was a moth or a butterfly. Anyway, it was green.'
'Come and do my obstacle course! You need crutches to complete it.'
[about the damper bread] 'What have you made?' (in italian accent) 'Spaghetti bolognaise with worms, woodlice, bark, and 17 spiders… in red wine. Would you like some?'
‘Charlie (has fallen off his log and is lying laughing on the floor) …have you died?’ ‘Yes.’