Tuning in on our hearing, we carefully listened to noise for our game of moth and bat.  There were some great tactics and also some fantastic listening from our bats, to find the moths who could only move when the rattled a shaker.  It was great fun.

We learnt all about the elder tree this week.  It is a small deciduous tree, native to the UK and is found in much of Europe. It is usually seen a large shrub rather than a small tree. The bark is grey-brown and looks like a plucked chicken!  It has relatively few branches.  Its leaves have 5-7 pairs of leaflets with segregated edges.   It was believed that you must ask permission of the Elder Tree Mother before cutting elder branches; if you didn’t, you would run the risk of being haunted.  Dumbledore’s original wand was an Elder Wand, and it was the most powerful wand ever created.

We heard a story about the elder tree and then went looking for the 2 elder trees that we have in our woodland walk.  As leaves are starting to grow, we found one tree easily.  It was looking very spindly and so we pruned it, hoping that there will be regeneration of new stems from the base in weeks to come.  We can then use the elder wood to create breads, whistles and even pencils.

Learning from last week’s issue of not being able to keep the fire going, we all worked as a team to collect firewood so we had a supply ready to feed the fire.

The fire was lit, wands were whittled, pancake mixture was made and games were played.  It was lovely to have to warm sun on our backs once more.  I am told that the pancakes were lovely.  Well done to the preppers of the batter and following the recipe carefully.  Also well done to the chefs, who cooked the drop scones over the fire; a difficult skill when you can’t turn the heat up and down like on a cooker!

What a lovely week.  Next week, we are planning to forage wild garlic from the school grounds and cook some garlic flatbreads.  Yummy! And of course, there will be plenty of other activities going on too!