Session 4 Marshlands and Marshmallows

While, despite optimistically trekking all our campfire gear up to Northumberland last week, the persistent rain scuppered our plans to have a campfire curry supper. We still managed to have a fantastic few days though exploring Alnwick Castle and Seahouses beach.

In the Poison Garden at Alnwick Castle, we learned some fascinating facts about the deadly properties of plants from oleander to giant hogweed. The children (and adults!) had great fun exploring the bamboo labyrinth and marveling a the jaw-dropping fountains.

At the beach, Mrs. Llewellyn worked with a group of children to create a fabulous seaweed mural of our school name. The children squealed with delight as they paddled in the sea and search for creatures lurking in the rock pools.

The heavy rain continued into this week causing our school site to become waterlogged and turning our fire pit into a mini pond!

On assessing the fire circle area with the children today, we decided that the ground was too muddy and slippy to safely have a fire. We took the decision therefore, to set up a temporary fire circle on the playground. The group were given some cones to mark out the fire circle. This led to interesting discussion of where the circle should be and how big it should be. At one point our circle was looking decidedly square and then circular but very small! Imath suggested to the other children that the fire area needed to be a circle so that everyone would be the same distance from the fire. He also said that we should move the circle away from the edge of the playground when I asked if people would safely be able to get all the way around the outside of the circle.
The boys spotted a play of circular play equipment on the playground which they decided to use to help them create the correct fire circle shape. They said that it would need to be moved before the fire was lit as it was plastic and would melt.

Once the circle was in place and an entry and exit point decided upon, the children moved on to setting up the tool/safety area. On a tarp, the group set out a bucket of water, first aid kit, burns kits, fire gloves, fire box (fire steels, cotton wool, firelighters) hand wipes, peelers and different sizes of wood.

Reece reminded the rest of the group of some of our fire safety rules including walking around the outside of the circle, feeding the fire from the side, not working in the line of the smoke, only entering the fire circle with permission and using the respect position when tending the fire.

The fire took quite a while to establish. The children began to realise that the space between their tinder, twigs and larger wood was too big meaning the flames were not spreading from one piece of fuel to the next.
After a bit of rejigging (with a bit of prompting) the successfully lit and maintained the fire.

After a quick spot of stick whittling, they were ready to toast the marshmallows that Farhan had discovered in our wood box. Farhan proved to be a very good marshmallow toaster, but as he didn't like the taste of the marshmallows, he generously shared them among the other members of his class who were working outside. Imath took a few attempts to master the marshmallow toasting technique leading to a few blackened blobs of molten goop! He was very pleased with himself when he finally toasted one to perfection. Murad discovered he could toast two at once by using a forked stick.

As the session came to a close and the bucket of water was passed round to extinguish the fire, the children reflected on what they had achieved today. The group were all very proud of their marshmallow toasting abilities.

Tomorrow, as part of the School's Roald Dahl Day, we will be bring out the fire pit again to make campfire toffee apples. Any excuse for a campfire!