See what I found?

 

See What I found?

A tiny wooden chair

Old, twisted, dirty, rough and curly

Found it near the fire circle in the grass

Do fairies us it as a chair?

 

I adore gathering words and questions with children – and adding thoughts onto luggage labels is something that I (and many others) love…

I often use luggage labels in projects for children (and me!) to add thoughts, questions, words and phrases to objects and places…

 

Today in the Discovery Garden at Dunkirk year 4 worked with me and we created a set of poems for tiny objects we found – and we made a little Garden museum of treasures…

I love simple poetry formats that follow a set of “rules” but then take on a million different meanings when created by a group of people… There’s something so inspiring and wonderful about a group of poems all made following the same pattern - but each poem has its own beauty, inspirations, quirks and ignites its own questions.

I’ve used lots of different poetry patterns in projects and today we used one of my favourites – this was suggested by Juliet at Creative Star Learning in a really lovely blog post about outdoor poetry  http://creativestarlearning.co.uk/ .   I’ve used it with adults and children (in schools and when I’ve run INSET sessions) and it produces results that are really captivating.

 

 

I’ve just been sorting through the photos I took of the children’s words in the garden – and have been smiling lots of their ideas – a million stories are suggested here I think (and a brilliant image in my head of a bug doing push-ups with a stone…)

 

 

See What I found?

A broken white jug

Broken, smooth, hard, bendy and white

I found it in the mud

Is this a piece of a jug and how did it get there?

 

See what I found?

A flower

Beautiful, green, pink and colourful

I found it on the floor

I wonder if it’s been an animals habitat?

See What I found

An interesting rock

Smooth, rough, bumpy, multi-coloured small rock

I found it next to some dirt

It might have come from space?

 

See what I found?

Two sticks to peel

Old, big, small, rusty

I found it on some bricks

I wonder that you can make something out of it?

 

See what I found?

A hard stone

Strong, does not break

I found it in the fire circle

I think a bug uses it to get muscles…

 

There are many more…

The poetry form is as follows (I’ve also changed it to “did you hear what I heard?”   and other things in a similar vein…)

First line: See what I found

Second line: say what the object is

Third line: four or five descriptive words about it

Forth line: say where you found it

Fifth line: a question about it

 

And the poems will flood in….

With very many thanks to Juliet at Creative Star Learning for the format and her wonderful blog posts…

http://creativestarlearning.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 http://creativestarlearning.co.uk/

 

We were also really pleased with the wonderful crop of strawberries we were able to pick and eat there and then today!  The Discovery Garden is nurturing us well!

Summer... long grass, wildflowers in the hedgerows, birdsong in the trees and the buzz of insects…

 

 

Summer is firmly here and this week the real heat has kicked in, which means for me that VERY early starts and then days in the shade are best for making things.  I’ve been exploring woodland and hedgerows really early to research and gather ideas for projects; and with groups I’ve been trying to find some shade as we celebrate the summer by creating things with natural materials…

 

 

 

An incredibly early start this morning found me up at one of my favourite spots in Derbyshire, where a thick mist covered almost everything: you could feel the hint of the hot sun waiting to appear later – it was really atmospheric.  Birds were calling loudly, a raven flew by “cronking” and there seemed to be jays foraging for food almost everywhere I looked…

 

 

 

The wildflowers in the woods, meadows and hedgerows are looking stunning here at the moment and I so love their names (foxglove, bladder campion, corncockle, monk’s-hood, selfheal, herb-robert, fox-and-cubs… I could go on and on…) there’s a gorgeous mixture of colours and textures and especially so when the sunlight is filtered in the early morning or evening.

 

 

 

 

 

With children we’ve been really exploring the properties of different plants – in terms of their colours, textures, their smells and tastes (where applicable!) and the habitat they provide.  The children I work with have been fascinated by the tiny creatures found amongst the plants – cuckoo-spit, leaf galls, spiders, damsel-flies, caterpillars and other grubs are all holding a deep fascination for them.  I’m glad to have a constant supply of ID charts and books nearby because the children can then immediately look things up and it generates some wonderful questions.

 

At Dunkirk we’ve been creating pictures by the wonderful technique of transferring leaf and petal pigments onto cloth with a mallet!  We deliberately allow lots of things to grow so that there is plenty to pick and make things with, as well as plenty for small creatures to use.   We also ensure there are certain areas of plants clearly demarked so that the children know not to pick from those.

  

 

 

 

The grass is really long now and I adore the textures and shades in it.  It’s a wonderful setting for photographing the grass itself but also other things placed within the grass…   there’s something really special about being able to lie back in the grass and contemplate the clouds, the birds and the sounds all around you…

 

I love watching the creative discoveries the children make outside when they use things like grass, plantain, clover and daisies to make things.  I’ve seen all sorts of winding, weaving, plaiting, binding and twisting going on to make things.

 

 

In my own wildlife-friendly garden I’m really fascinated by my pond at the moment, there are several adult frogs present, loads of beetles and other water bugs, damsel-flies, hoverflies, water-snails galore… and the tadpoles have almost all grown their legs and emerged as froglets…

 

In the Discovery Garden at Dunkirk our pond is also thriving with so many insects, I adore sitting by the water with the children watching for things, contemplating, describing and exploring the habitat offered by having a pond.

One of the other plus sides there at the moment is the abundance of fruit that is ripening – strawberries, raspberries, blackcurrants and more are now all becoming ready daily, so when working outside with the children there are always a few to be picked and eaten as a snack there and then.

 

 

 

An abundance of clover – smells wonderful, is rich in bees and also I’ve found it naturally generates a host of songs being created amongst children as they observe bees busily collecting…

 

Water on hand is crucial on hot days – to drink but also to cool your feet in…

 

And water mixed with other things generates all sorts of discoveries… last week a couple of boys showed me exactly how much dry and sand and water were needed to mix together to create a perfectly round sand ball…   They had spent ages getting their mixtures exactly right…

 

When there is plenty of flowers and grass it means you can pick a few select items to make things…   we’ve been creating potions, dens, garlands, adornments, bunting and adding grass etc onto double sided tape to make a selection of striped images and descriptions…    I also like the addition of sand onto some of these…

 

  

 

I love to use clay throughout the year and at the moment there are so many wonderful natural objects to add to it in creating figures, creatures and mystical beings…

 

Because the grass is long and insects thrive it means there are endless opportunities for discoveries.   One of the boys in the reception class at Abbey Campus (Dunkirk has two buildings now) found this beetle last week.   The beetle was already dead when discovered – which prompted all sorts of questions about how he had died but it also meant there was a perfect opportunity to study the beetle closely and really get a great look at the exquisite detail in the beetle’s body.

 

Taking objects you’ve made outside to place amongst the foliage brings a whole other dimension to them…

  

 

 

The cob oven is fired up for the first time…

 

We used the cob oven this week for the first time – very exciting!

 

We’d had some really sunny and dry weather but I knew that the oven was going to still need a lot of drying out time, so I wasn’t sure how the first fire would go…  It was an exciting experimental process and part of the discovery of getting to know the oven!

I was with Oak, the year two class at Dunkirk, all day, with their teacher Mark Woodings and their teaching assistant Michelle Loach.  Between the three of us therefore we were able to facilitate a whole set of things happening in parallel with the children.   Whilst at the very start of the morning I worked with a very small group to sort fuel and light the fire in the oven, the rest of the class had a wonderful telling of the Little Red Hen story, complete with lots of visual and tactile props.

Throughout the day, the class all made bread dough in groups – it was important they all had a chance to explore this (the whole school does a lot of cooking all year round, so using the oven is just a part of a much wider set of on-going activities).  We’re also hoping to have a bread week at school in September, where all classes can make a whole set of different breads and test out lots of different methods used around the world to bake and share bread.

Oak class have been exploring their self-generated  question of “how things move” and also recently been looking at space.  So as a brilliant hands-on way of exploring this they all worked in small groups to build rockets from old carbonated drinks bottles, which were then test-launched with Mark’s foot-pump.   It meant that we were launching rockets and firing the cob oven all at the same time (all whilst little groups also made dough and looked at yeast rising etc).   The rockets worked really well, some went incredibly high and I loved that happening whilst we cooked

 

Because we were on the school field and Discovery Garden (they are all part of the same area) all day it meant there was exactly enough space for all of these things to be happening alongside each other.  There was a wonderful host of questions, observations, thoughts and ideas all being exchanged.   The children could watch what each other were doing and had the physical space they needed to do this. 

 

So as I stoked the fire in the oven and cut firewood with some children, there were rockets being fired nearby and really interesting discussions amongst the children.   

There were also lots of loose parts being turned into potions, concoctions, images and stories…

 

 

It was wonderful to finally light the oven, the fire got going well but did need to be stoked a lot.   I didn’t want to make a big fire in it and I was wary of causing cracks with any sudden changes in temperature.  We had the oven lit all day and it did take at least three hours to get hot enough to begin to cook bread.  Its all an experiment and so important for the children to see adults willing to test and not always know how things will turn out.  The first batch of rolls came out a bit soft (“I’d like some dumplings” one boy said!) but were cooked through and had a great slightly smoky taste.  By the end of the day the oven was cooking the little bread rolls really well and had built up a great amount of heat.

 

You have to “soak” the oven through with the heat, it works as a heat-retaining chamber and it’s the residual heat that you cook with.  Its was really interesting seeing how hot the different parts of the oven became and which part held the most heat – and that’s important in helping us to learn how to cook with it.   Every clay oven is slightly different and I like the idea that you have to get to know your own oven!

 

We’ve not had a chance to make a door for the oven yet and I used a set of bricks to close the doorway (and thereby retain the heat) whilst we cooked with it – this seemed to work fine.  I liked the little bits of smoke emerging from the doorway, especially as they swirled around the little character that sits just about the door!

 

In terms of using a cob oven in school, it does need an adult with it throughout and there’s loads of practical aspects that are crucial – especially as you are using fire.   (One of the really important elements of my Forest School training was the health and safety aspects of making and using fire, safely, with children.)  The school needs to be committed to using the oven and have enough members of staff willing to do this – and that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about our cob oven at Dunkirk.

Building and using a clay oven in a school does feel a process that is making several important ethical points.  It’s about making things yourself – not buying them in ready made.   It’s about slowing down and understanding that things take time.   It’s about cooking and sharing food – and creating a social and community space to do this.   It’s about the ecology of the way we cook and use fuel and it’s about understanding where our food comes from.  It’s about the spaces we give to our children and to ourselves as adults.

 

Whilst we ate our bread we were able to take in all the other aspects of the natural world around us.  Damselflies are now busy in the Discovery Garden, as well as many bees, beetles, butterflies and so much more.  The pond has many small creatures in it.   Flowers are out, many different kings of leaves are about, there are very visible signs of the cycle of life – cuckoo spit, leaf-galls of various kinds are plentiful as well as some small remains of a couple of dead birds killed, we think, by a sparrowhawk (the children don’t touch these but are really interested).   These things provide crucial points for discussions about the natural world.

 

So, we hope to use the oven again at least once a week for the rest of term and we’ll get to know it more and more as we do so.   Its providing such a wonderful talking point and we’ve had some very inspiring conversations with families about cooking traditions around the world.   Many of the children at school come from a whole host of countries and either they or their families have first hand experience of cooking in many different ways.