We made baked apples on Saturday! This perfectly sums up the season don’t you think? To book a session click here or email hello@elementsschool.net.
Well, we tried… in the end we just gave up and collected them but we later made paper bullets and played Hide and Seek in the forest with our new catapults.
Can you see the child? No? Good.
And before we knew it, two hours has flown past. Oh I told the story about Cellini’s salamander as we learnt how to create another fire structure.
We have the most amazing party space. Two forests, a roundhouse, two open sided party spaces (one with a woodburning stove), toilet and loads of parking. We do the games and the activities, you provide the cake and the food. After it is over you just go home. It is really that simple.
Party games have included a cool scavenger hunt, beating the giant web, making bows and arrows from sticks which are lying around and some string. But we adapt to parties and children. We make a fire, go for a walk and visit frogs. Stories are told – from Greek myths to fairytales.
While we do this you have time to get the room ready and chill.
Party games/ activities last for an hour and a half and food etc is another half hour.
It could not be easier.
Go to this page to make a booking. Charges are £16 per child for the first ten children thereafter £12.50 for each child up to 15 children. Includes use of all facilities.
Hope to see you there!
Email hello@elementsschool.net for more details.
To book a session/ sessions with us go here.
Is there a better and more beautiful place to be than in a forest at this time of the year? The past day it has been rainy, but even in the forest, when it rains, you are sheltered. Also, we have our little hobbit hut and we are looking forward to finally lighting the fire in there as the nights draw in.
This week we left the oak galls behind – although we have discovered the ink is colour fast and does not bleed when it comes into contact with water – and instead started looking at other woodland crafts.
The making of charcoal is a doubled edged one. One the one hand, it is an extremely efficient way of using fire – on the other, forests all over the world are being decimated for this purpose. We do not make charcoal for burning though since we have so much wood for this, but rather, we make it for drawing.
Fire lighting is also a skill which all students have a chance to do – no matter how young they are. (Our students are between 6 and 12 years.) For many of them, it will be the first time someone has trusted them to do something very grown up – build their own fire.
From fire we have charcoal, but we also get lovely tea!
This tea is perfect for all kinds of conditions. Nettle is full of iron and Vit K. Meadowsweet is a mild analgesic and a general good all rounder. Apples lend a season flavour and are a magical treat. We boil the water in a kelly kettle which is always special.
Cordage can be made from all kinds of things – including nettles. We tell the story of the Wild Swans as we make the string.
We trial a book and it is successful. From now on each student will have their own Forest School book in which they will record each week’s experiences…
We are clearing out the dead wood on the lower branches of the oak forest to let light in and to enable entry to it. Forest management is an essential part of what we do.
Soil testing was also one of the activities we undertook. The soil is a precious fragile layer upon which all life depends and as Elements, we must also pay attention to the Earth.
We have had an amazing month. We have made ink, charcoal, cordage, bows and arrows, held a birthday party already and had more than twenty children through our doors. We have soil tested, counted up frogs, learned how to clear dead wood and remove ivy. And we have only just started.
Thank you to everyone who has been so supportive, especially Joan Woods and Tina Kearsting, our fairy godmothers – without them nothing would have been possible. And of course, the elementals themselves, who have been with us every step of the way. Thank you guys!
We were delighted that Issac and Ruiri chose us to celebrate their birthdays!
To book a birthday party fill in this form or email hello@elementsschool.net.
We try to have activities which have them learning things but in a fun way. So one of the activities which we did was making your own bow. You then had to shoot an arrow from your bow. Hidden in this activity was the tensile strength needed to create a bow from a suitably bendy stick, tying a knot, and then learning to shoot an arrow – another found stick. It was the best fun we had.
Scavenger hunts had us all around the site, identifying flowers, plants and other found objects – and learning the names of the various autumnal berries, as well as looking at different kinds of leaves.
After that there was the party.
Before the party though was learning about the long drop toilet – Shrek’s Toilet as it will now forever be known as.
Feedback from the parent:
Hi guys – thank you so much for Saturday. I’ve been chatting to the boys – they both really enjoyed themselves and feedback from the other families was really positive! R- said he loved the story round the fire and Shrek’s hut and I- loved seeing the frogs.
From our perspective, the place and space is amazing, having the barn set up was great. You guys were great at answering questions, letting us know rough plan for the day and I thought the games and prizes were spot on.
A little more than a week ago, we asked three of our Elementals to write a story for the Muddy Faces Dragon Sneeze competition. Two of them submitted their efforts today. I think you will agree they are VERY cute. We stand to win a Dragon Sneeze kit which includes a fire pit and dragon sneezes worth £200. May the elementals be with us!
Book here for a session with us.
This one is by Fiona Press-Worth, aged 10
This one is by Elaria Foley-Leech
Book here for a session with us.
Our Third Session!
Book here for a session with us.
Our sessions are always filled with activities pertaining to the time of the year. This time we looked at the riches of the hedgerows and collected and made fruits and leaves to make hedgerow tea. These fruits are filled with Vit C and other minerals and trace elements. Collecting them at this time of the year to dry would have been something added to the medicine cabinet back at the house. It would have been beneficial for the long winter months to ensure that we were able to remedy a cough or cold.
One of the elements is in fact, Earth and today we studied the magic of soil. A substance to which we owe our entire existence. Barely a few metres on the surface of the planet, it is a marriage of minerals and plants. It is what we depend on – the forests, our food, the animals – everything depends on the soil and today we looked at how we could look after it.
To book a session go here.
We had an amazing day. We were small but perfectly constituted. The theme was going to be dragons, but we did not expect to get so many frogs in the bargin. The idea began when we went to visit the inhabitants from Parallal Dimensions by Siubhan Regan as part of a photocall. We could not move for the frogs which were jumping out of our way. So I thought, why not, for our first session, do a citizen science survey of the frogs in the area. We could do a transect and the submit the results to CeDAR. So that is what we did!
We began with the frog survey… We did a transect of 9m by 3m and took 5 minutes per section… and we came up with 31 frogs. It was completely mad. Far more frogs that we could have ever dreamed of. The skills learned? How to do a transect, measure with tape, record data and look for frogs (although the last one was a bit too easy).
We were going to gather more oak gall, but we needed to get across to the oak area… To do this we had to shimmy across the shuck. This was quite fun.
Having blackberries is one of the joys of September! As we waited for each other to cross, Jonathan told us a story about blackberries and how they figured in part of Irish history.
We gathered the oak galls and part of the process included pruning the lower branches – the dead ones of the oak trees in the new forest.
We will be making black ink using this at the next session. So science and practical art. This is the mission of Elements – to always make experiences meaningful and relatable. For memories to be forged and made.
We ended the session with an ancient story – the story of Sigurd and Fafnir. From the Norse/Germanic myths which went on to influence Tolkein and Wagner to create The Lord of the Rings and The Ring Cycle, respectively.
I would like to thank everyone who made this day possible. A tiny part of this dream has come true.
To book a session go here.
To book a forest school session go here.
Part of our mission is to do some serious Citizen Science – this consists of ordinary people taking part in data gathering or helping scientists do things like figure out complex and puzzling problems. This has been used for everything from doing wildlife surveys to spotting new black holes.
Tomorrow we will be counting the Frogs and hopefully spotting a Smooth Newt or two, in order to start a record of the wildlife on the site.
However, we aren’t JUST doing Citizen Science. We are also doing habitat restoration. This will consist of pruning ivy off trees which are being strangled by the creepers. As lovely as ivy is, it is not great for the trees. So we will be out with pruning saws to give our beautiful trees a chance.
And we will also be lighting a fire in the Main outdoor area and perhaps even giving it a name. It is all go for our first day. Yes it is fun to be outside, but it is also satisfying to be giving back. I do hope you will be able to join us.
To book a forest school session go here.
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