Bonfire Celebrations

Last week, the children shared reasons why we have fire and learned about the fire triangle and fire safety.

Reasons and uses for fire they came up with included:

• To keep warm
• To give light
• To heat water
• To cook over
• To warm drinks
• To keep insects and predators away
• Signalling
• Religious festivals
• To make charcoal
• Branding
• To make glass
• To fire pottery
• Smoking meat and fish
• Funeral pyres
• To dispose of waste
• Blacksmithing/Smelting metal
• To sing, dance and tell stories around
• To sterilize things
• To join things together

Next we discussed the three elements required for a fire to light and be sustained - Heat, Oxygen, Fuel.

We thought about how these three elements are produced or occur in nature. Examples of ways to generate heat included matches, rubbing sticks together, a lighter, flint and steel, the sun, magnifying glass and electricity. 

Cooking bannock bread on bamboo canes

We moved on to consider types of fuel and their benefits and drawbacks. We talked about how some fuels burn very easily but are difficult to control such as liquid fuels. We thought about what types of fuel we might use at Forest School to build a manageable fire.

Finally we talked about how we can safely light, maintain and extinguish a fire. 

Marshmallow toasted to perfection

We shared ideas about what things we should have in our fire safety kit. We agreed that it should include water for treating burns and extinguishing the fire, a first aid and burns kit, a fire blanket and fire resistant gloves. 

Success at last. The cotton wool ignites.

This week, in celebration of bonfire night the children have been putting their knowledge in to practice. After practicing how to light tinder (we used cotton wool) using a fire steel, we moved on to building a fire to cook over. The children built up the layers of fuel, kindling and tinder in our fire pit. Once the flames had died down a little to glowing embers, we were able to heat our soup and toast bannock bread on our bamboo canes. To accompany our bread we had a go at making butter by putting double cream and salt in jam jars and shaking it until the milk fat separated from the buttermilk. For pudding, we toasted marshmallows and sandwiched them between chocolate digestives to create the American campfire treat, s'mores.