The Lighting of a Fire or Two

Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire. - William Butler Yeats

Well, forest school is drawing to a close.   Tomorrow is the final session.  It's been a great experience for the boys who have learned how to use various tools (secateurs, loppers, bow saw); collected firewood; whittled sticks to make marshmallow skewers; fashioned cups from apples and oranges; built dens; created nature pictures using blackberries and raspberries as 'paint" and of course, learned how to light a fire and keep it burning!   The experience has hopefully been a fire lighting one in the sense that Yeats refers to above :-)

Continuing with a woody theme, we attended the Party in the Woods at Reffley Woods last weekend. Gman was particularly taken with a drumming workshop held in small clearing in the woods. He banged the drums while Waif shook his thang:




I'm not sure how we have missed visiting these woods before, given their proximity to home, but we will definitely be returning not least because we spotted a bumper crop of not-quite-ripe blackberries which we will be returning to harvest this week (if others don't beat us to it!)

This week has hopefully seen the sparking of a love of sewing in Waif. He patiently sat and sewed a little drawstring bag for his Granny, and was very proud of the result: