We looked the the materials in the nest. What was the difference between the outside materials and the inside materials? They found white long hairs in the inside. This nest came from my garden. I told how I clean the hairs from my comb during spring and leave them out for the nest building birds. The other nest had soft white stuff lining inside. What could it be? We used our thumb and pointer finger to see what it would be like if you only had a beak to pick up some materials on the ground. Imagine weaving a nest with just a beak. We wondered how long it would take. Do both parent birds make the nest together?

Off they ran to collect materials. We tried out sticks. Would we need bendy ones to make a circular nest? Sticks were put through a trial of whether they were bendy or snappy.

By the end of a term of Forest Fridays the children’s knowledge about the woodland is amazing. Their naming of plants, animals, fungi, birds and invertebrates is impressive but what really is impressive is their love and knowledge and excitement. I watched them pick up sticks from the forest floor and chatting to themselves saying “snappy” and “bendy”. After a while I noticed that they wanted bendy sticks so they didn’t pick up snappy ones. Their power of observation, knowing the twigs which were mainly larch and ash from they other twigs by starting with experimenting is a far greater knowledge than just naming plants.

Tasting, smelling, touching,hearing, imagining, making, wondering, noticing, observing, climbing, playing all feed into a deep understanding of the woodland.

We got a letter from Blue tit.

Hi There!

I have been watching you during the past Fridays. I love watching the fun you have because you remind me of my family. I laid 15 eggs and out of that amount 10 have hatched.

I have my nest near grandmother tree so when my hungry chicks leave the nest they will have plenty of caterpillars to eat. My babies eat up to 100 caterpillars a day! That’s a lot of food.

You might hear them when I arrive with food to the nest they make an almost continuous cacophony of ‘tsee – tsee – tsee – tsee – tsee’.

Bye for now, I’m off to collect 100s of caterpillars,

Blue Tit