As we arrived in the park, the children were very excited and immediately wanted to explore. We spotted something on the ground, it was a small green plant but Tara pointed out that this was something even more special! It was a sapling! But what type of sapling could it be? We looked at the characteristics of the sapling and we thought it looked like long green fingers. Immediately the children recognised what is was… it was a horse chestnut tree! The children looked around and found several more growing below a huge conker tree.
As we walked around looking for more saplings, the children found an abundance of broken branches and sticks. Where had they all come from? One of the children decided she wanted to build a small house for a squirrel and alongside several of her friends, they began to lie sticks against a tree to create the structure. Another child found brightly coloured leaves and flowers which would act as the carpet and decorations. The squirrel home soon changed and became a home for tree fairies who no longer had a branch to sit on. The girls decorated the whole house with flowers and it really did look fit for a fairy!
“We need to use a leaf for the mat so the fairies can wipe their feet” - Jenny
“But fairies fly so they don’t have dirty feet’’ - Alice
As one group of children built their fairy home, another group of children were attempting to place a broken branch back into the ground so it could regrow. This was a very tricky thing to do! The children initially began to place sticks into the ground and using them like a screwdriver, attempted to churn out soil to create a hole. The children soon found that this would not work for such a long branch. They decided to then attempt to pack the bottom of the branch with soil and sticks to help support it to stand. With a lot of hard work they managed to achieve this and were so proud of themselves when their tree branch stood upright independently. But how long would it last? Unfortunately we soon learned that trees require roots to stabilise them as the branch fell down. Never mind, we still had a full afternoon to enjoy and the sky was beginning to turn a dark grey colour. This could only mean one thing…we may be getting wet!