Grey Squirrels, 3 May

These Grey Squirrels, enjoyed being back on the Bluff, making all sorts of creative obstacles for themselves with ropes and working on their toolwork. The ingenuitity of these children is impressive, we had an absailing rope which Walter rigged up, Olive made herself a climbing harness and used it to pull herself up a tree, Cosma made a climbing rope, Wyatt made a harness, Astrid made a lasso and many enjoyed a swing made from a big stick. These creations were brilliant examples of problem solving, working with each other to get a result and really trusting and providing hands-on support for peers as several of these setups required belayers or someone to coach them through the challenge they had created.

The interest in beavers inspired us to work on a diagram of the beaver, discussing features unique to the beaver, like its oily fur, its webbed feet, its ever-growing teeth and its leathery tail. We made this into a fun game of pin the tail on the beaver.... which got everyone giggling!

Our much loved animal game inspired the play with several children playing as their animal... Denan was a convincing wolverine who liked to climb trees!

Connection questions:

What do you know about beavers...

- what are their houses called? (You've actually stood on a beaver lodge).

- what do they eat? (what do you see around rivers where they live?)

- how do they swim, why are their webbed feet and tail shaped as they are?

What did you play in the tree with the ropes? What was difficult, what would you like to do differently next time?