Easter Egg and Nut hunt, sausage eating and Storytelling!

Making the fire!

A beautifully finished crown

 

What an amazing day today in the woods! We had so much fun and such variety! it was a jam packed day and it seemed that no one sat down for even a minute - apart from when needing to roast sausages or make crowns and masks. Lots of families came down to the Easter egg and nut hunt which started at 11am. The weather was glorious and it held out all day! 

Easter bunny!

Earwig on crown...can you spot it

 We started the day making Easter Crowns in the bell tent. It was incredibly hot in there so we didn't last long! There were many different kinds of crowns - Jack made a Ninja band and Megan made a beautiful simple crown with moss and Mathilde stuck a dead earwig on hers! We then went to make a fire! Many of the children had done this before and yet they all really enjoyed trying it again and getting involved. They counted how long it would take them each to light it with a flint and some did it straight away and others took a lot longer!  After making the crowns we went and got ready to do the Easter egg hunt, which took us all the way to lunch time. We went everywhere in the woods and the children left no stone unturned as they looked for eggs, for chicks and for yellow markers to tell them where the Easter bunny had been and where he might be found! Sounds of squeeling and delight could be heard throughout the woods every time a chick was found and an egg or two uncovered.



storytelling!



Beautiful mentoring in process!

All the children were very careful of the bluebells as well and treated them with utmost respect. They completely understood the need for leaving the bluebells protected as much as possible and were absolutely brilliant in avoiding the fenced off areas. The Easter Egg hunt went in and out of the Rhodes and at times we ended up on our knees crawling through them - well, the adults did! At the end we even found the Easter bunny hiding in the thicket with a huge basket of eggs for all the children and adults too.

Story telling!!



Sausages!



We went back to camp to check out our goodies. Some people had eggs and chicks, others had found rabbit fur and stag beatles! There was a little something for everyone, and there were what seemed like hundreds of sausages for everyone as well.

We all ate sausages and wonderful lemon drizzle cake (THANK YOU Trish, what would we do without you) and there were also some very beautifully made chocolate cornflake cakes with gorgeous little easter libunnies and easter eggs on. There were children of all ages and even then littlelest ones really enjoyed themselves!

Nuts for the Nutter!



Dinosaur head!



After lunch there was another hunt to go on, but this time it was nut hunt! It was all about finding nuts lito identify what sort of mice might be nibbling them! There was some seriously brilliant nut nibbling identification and collecting going on. We didn't find any mice, but there were plenty of holes they could have been hiding in. We did however a find a dinosaur and it was very growly and made lots of noise! Mathilde fell in love with it and did not want to leave it at the end of the day, but we did persuade her in the end!  

We also found spiders, wood lice, worms and a really wonderful snail that came out of its shell to say hello. There were also plenty of ticks to be found and we are hoping that we have all avoided them attaching to us!

Only time will tell!

Mr Snail!

After the great nut hunt we went and sat in the silver birch clearing towards the edge of the wood where the sun was beaming down on us. We were so lucky to have Clare Viner with us who tells the most wonderful stories and she sat with us and painted wonderful pictures with words as she told the story of the grandmother spider who brought fire to humans, and after, the story of Bethusta the young girl who dances with the the white lady of the silver birch woods whilst she ought to be spinning wool for the market instead. The children were really enthralled and got involved in the stories as they were being told. Spinning around and around in the clearing until they were dizzy, singing the song she sang as she spun or raising their hands and flying like an eagle. It was brilliant to watch and to take part in and we hope that Clare will come and do some more stories in the woods soon.

Wood nymph!

After a very exciting day we finished around 3.30pm. The sun was still shining, the cakes had pretty much been eaten and there were only a few sausages left. The dogs were at home so there was no one to steal the sausages.

Nut hunting!

It was an absolutely fantastic day. It was so much fun! I loved being able to take pictures, and hope that I have been able to capture some of the gorgeous moments that we all shared. If any of the families that were there would like copies of the pictures, please email me on cdithmar@btconnect.com and I will share a link with you on Picasa.

Thank you so much to everyone who came!