National Play Champions

Go Wild are National Play Champions! How exciting! It's all to do with National Children's Day which is on the 17th May.  

Apparently 'Play Champions are children’s centres, playgroups, schools and other settings where children find space and time for play of all kinds – creative, exploratory, imaginative, deep play, rough and tumble play, role play, mastery play – any type of play that involves children's natural creativity and being able to do lots of things without needing to focus on specific, pre-determined outcomes'. Which is a complicated way of saying that Play Champions give children the time and space to explore, create, discover, delve into their imaginations and have fun without telling them what to do... or being scared that they're not learning.

I think the same applies to adults too. 

Woohoo! Nature Kits are go!

Take a look at that right there! That's a labour of love that is. After a year of fundraising and planning and writing and spending days and days trawling the internet for a box that was made of recycled materials, the first Go Wild Nature Kit is ready to go! Woohoo!

To be honest, I'm sick of the sight of them at the moment but I'm sure in a couple of weeks I'll feel quite pleased with myself. And my friends. I really do know some talented people who have helped me in all kinds of ways on this journey. Thank you, you lot. You know who you are.

Next step is to get widgets and stuff onto the website so people can buy them. Watch this space!

Focaccia on a campfire

Just take a look at that! That's a rather yummy focaccia that one of my level 3 Forest School trainees made on the campfire this afternoon. There was spelt bread too. And banana bread.

On a separate course, somehow we came up with making bread in a bag and it's all too simple and easy not to share! Read on to find out how to make bread when you're outdoors without getting your hands all sticky.




 To make the bread mix you will need:

• 500g strong white flour
• 5g dried yeast
• 10g fine salt
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 325ml water
• Semolina flour for cooking
• Extra salt and oil for finishing
• A sturdy, sealable food bag (Ikea do great ones)
• Some kind of water bottle

Method:

1. DO THIS BIT AT HOME. Put all the dry ingredients into the food bag.
2. Put the wet ingredients into a water bottle. Go camping.
3. Once you get where you're going and decide that it's time to start the bread mix off get someone to light a fire and then pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and seal the bag with that little clicky thing at the top, pushing out as much air as possible.
4. Knead the bread mix through the bag. Give it to the kids, or someone else. It's a lot less boring when you're sat by a fire. You need to do this for about 10 minutes.
5. Put the bag somewhere warm for an hour or so. Put it under a coat, or in a sleeping bag, or just somewhere off the ground. Remember to check it occasionally to make sure it doesn't explode!
6. Meanwhile, once the fire has got some good embers going, preheat your oven' by putting the casserole onto the embers and put a few on the top and leave for at least an hour.
7. Once the bread dough has risen and the oven is hot, open the bag and knock back the dough.
8. Take the casserole off the fire and remove the lid. Dust the bottom with semolina flour so that the bread dough won't stick. If it goes black instantly your oven is too hot. Tip it out, wait a little and then try again.
9. Pour the bread dough straight into the casserole, spread out with your fingers and make those little dimples. Sprinkle with posh salt and drizzle with olive oil then put the lid on and put it back into the embers.
10. Put embers back onto the top of the casserole and leave for about 20 minutes, turning the pot around every 5 minutes to get an even bake.

And at the end of that you should have a lovely loaf of focaccia to munch. If not, it's a good excuse to light a fire and try again!






You will need:

• A cast iron casserole or dutch oven (with lid)
• Bread mix
• Water bottle with oil and water in it

Dinner under a dinosaur

Not just any old dinosaur, the dinosaur! You know, the one in the National History Museum in London. At night.

And it wasn't just any old meal, it was a Michelin starred meal and it was bloomin' tasty! And a little bit surreal.

It's not often (read: ever) that I get to do anything like that but this was all due to the Paw Prints project we did last week. As I said in that post, it was part of a larger project by Synchronicity Earth to commemorate 50 years of the IUCN Red List. We were in the Natural History Museum for the Biophilia Ball. Have a look below to hear Jessica Sweiden's speech (clever organising lady).

Go Wild has gone international!

Muddy leaf art in Bristol

Go Wild has gone international! This week, we've been out in the woods EVERY DAY with a class of Year 5 pupils from Luckwell Primary School in Bristol taking part in the Paw Prints project. The cool thing about this project (apart from the amount of 'Wild Time' we've been getting) is that three other schools have been doing the same activities on the same day - and two of those schools were in DIFFERENT COUNTRIES!

Grassy leaf art in London

So while we've been messing about in the muddy woods in Bristol and another school in London has been carrying out activities in their local, grassy park, a group of students in Tampere, Finland have been braving the cold and the ice, while children in Mogan, Gran Canaria have been doing the same activities in shorts and T-shirts!

Chilly smelly cocktails in Finland

The less glamorous side of things is the weeks of planning that have gone into producing lesson plans that work in different seasons, climates and habitats while still teaching the children about ecosystems, using all of their senses. I love a challenge and I enjoyed every minute of it!

Activities included recording sound postcards in the dark, making mud faces on trees, creating ephemeral leaf art, meeting trees, making smelly cocktails... The children then uploaded photos that they had taken of the activities onto a website that had been created for the project and had a look at what the other schools had been doing.

Hot smelly cocktails in Gran Canaria

This project was run as a part of a larger initiative from Synchronicity Earth to mark 50 years of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The aim was to inspire the next generation of environmental custodians by getting them to explore and understand their local ecosystems.

If you would like to have a go yourself, whether you are a teacher or a parent, you can download the lesson plans from the Paw Prints Website.

Young Carers Go Wild

When we're running around the woods, playing and having fun it's easy to forget that many children do not have the opportunity to do so because they are a 'young carer'.

Young carers are children and young people who look after someone in their family who has a disability, a long term illness, or is affected by mental ill health or substance misuse. Young carers may look after parents, care for a brother or sister, or other relative. The average age of a young carer is 12 and they take on responsibilities normally only expected of an adult.

Research indicates that 1:12 young people in UK secondary schools are either impacted by family ill health or carry a caring responsibility. This means that their childhood is far from carefree.

This month we teamed up with Flamingo Foundation for a day of adventure for young carers in Bristol.

We spent the day in the woods, running around playing 'coo-ee', discovering hiding places and new trees, learning to light fires safely, cooking our lunch over an open fire and, of course, stuffing our faces with sausages, popcorn and marshmallows (although not all at the same time)
 
We had such a good time, more are planned for 2015 so watch this space!

A Little Book for Nature Investigators

This Summer I was invited to write the foreword for Canopy & Star's Little Book for Nature Investigators.

This lovely little booklet is for all budding Nature Investigators who enjoy exploring the wild outdoors. There are four packs full of amazing facts, games, puzzles and jokes plus the Nature Investigators Passport to keep track of your progress. What's more, if you post your finished passport to Canopy & Stars, they'll send you a Brilliant Certificate of Completion!

Here's how to get hold of the book and start investigating:  

1. Print out the whole book in landscape format. The pages ordered for fun foldy booklet making OR

2. Download the whole book to view on screen (take it with you on your tablet) OR

3. Print or download the Nature Investigators Passport for any budding Investigators who might want their own.