Watery Woodland

We have had some bitterly cold weather recently, but today has been a pleasantly mild and sunny day. A perfect day for a walk in the woods. The Year 6 Forest School group joined the morning nursery group on their walk to Ravenscliffe Wood, whilst the Year 3 group joined the afternoon nursery children. Yesterday's snow was melting fast leaving some  delightfully squelchy muddy puddles for us to splosh through. We tested the depth of the puddles with a stick to ensure the puddles wouldn't breach welly height!

The woodland looked quite different to our last visit, with the trees bare of their leaves and the bracken brown and withered. Abandoned bird nests could easily be spotted in the sparse canopy and on the ground, melt water gushed like mini rivers down the steep pathways.

Alex, Bailey and Michael collected branches and rocks to try and dam one of the streams. They found discarded containers to use as makeshift boats. Michael noticed a green plant growing under the stream water which he thought looked like cress.

The water is welly high here

These leaves look like a bird nest

We are using a stick to measure the water depth

On our way to the woods

Listening to see if our discovered bone is alive

We found a fox hole

Making a dam

We saw nests in the canopy

I found a magic stone

What can I see in the woods?

We saw lots of weird and wonderful fungi

We used an old tyre to make a stepping stone

Murad, Reece and Farhan demonstrated their mountain-goat like agility by staging a tag relay race on a particularly steep and muddy embankment. (Ravenscliffe Wood is on the site of ancient quarry land, with evidence of spoil heaps rising up around the perimeter of the woodland).