Who are the VYFWBP?

We are a friendly community group, run by parents, who meet every Thursday morning in West Bank Park, York. Whatever the weather, school hols included, we spend a couple of hours in the woods and meadows of the Park, doing nature games and crafts, building or making things with materials we find, telling stories and singing songs.

We are open to all - with a contribution of £1 a family (to cover basic equipment) - so if you want to join us, see you on Thursday at 10am at the statue of Queen Victoria, at the top of the Rose Walk. (Bring something simple to share at snack time.)

For more information contact Elly at: westbankparkkids@gmail.com

Sunday 26 October 2008

Autumn creativity

The blog is a little out of date! The past two weeks have seen some impressive creative efforts by the Very Young Friends. Two weeks ago, on a radiantly sunny day, we gathered autumn leaves from the maple and sycamore trees at the bottom of the Rose Walk. The cold, dry weather had brought out some beautiful yellows and reds in them. Then we tied them into bunches, mobiles and the like - although I must confess it was quite difficult to contain our younger members and persuade them not to run away altogether. But even the littlest and wildest did concentrate on the story, in which Kigbo (the hand puppet) took a wander through the forest (all their leaf creations being held by them) and admired the different 'trees'.

Last week blustery weather sent us into the Park cafe, where Jill and the other wonderful staff are always so tolerant of our noise and mess, and supply us with tempting chocolate cake. We made 'gardens' on trays (chopped-up cereal boxes) using salty playdough as 'land', tinfoil for 'lakes', hedge clippings as 'trees', sticks as 'fences', conkers and pebbles and crabapples as various garden structures. The children really concentrated and produced some lovely gardens. We gathered up all our leftover clippings etc, and brought them to the Park compost heaps, where the children presented them to the Heaps as presents! Then storytime, as last week, featured a little gnome going for a walk through all their lovely gardens, looking for a friend to play with.

This week Bryony will be showing us how to make a bird feeder out of a log - looking forward to it!

Tuesday 14 October 2008

Following the Squirrel Food Trail...... 9 October 2008

This week the squirrels of West Bank Park asked the Very Young Friends for their help. The squirrels had collected food to store for winter but had piled it up and were having trouble finding it again. Luckily the squirrels had left some very big footprints for us to follow and a few clues along the way to help. The older children concentrated on following the footprints, looked out for the clues and collected the food in their bags (chestnuts, beech nuts, rose hips, pine cones etc), the younger ones enjoyed being led along the trail and picking up the food to put in their bags. The squirrels meanwhile had been busy writing thank you letters to the children and rewarding them with cake for their hard work (the squirrels in our park are very talented!).

Monday 6 October 2008

Autumn Celebration a great success!

This Sunday saw a rather impromptu 'Autumn Celebration' at the Park. The wood carver was finishing his carving (two Green Men - I think - near the New Lane entrance - nice and low down for little ones to look at!) A fantastic ceilidh band called NE66 set up, juggler too, refreshments were served, a naturalist offered a Tree Walk round the park's interesting collection of trees, storyteller (me) set up near the cafe, the weather was glorious....but at 1:30 hardly anyone was there! But little by little they trickled in, till by 2pm there was a really good crowd, some bopping near the band's gazebo, others listening to stories or queuing for tea and biscuits.

My two little ones had such a good time they didn't ask to go to the playground even once! They were too busy dancing and nicking the juggler's balls!

Do your shopping in West Bank Park!

This time of year is really when there is the most tempting array of colourful berries, crab-apples, nuts, acorns and conkers on display. So we went a-gathering them in the old-fashioned way. Each child had their own little basket (made out of old Shreddies boxes mostly) which they decorated themselves. Gathering was great, except that it has been a good year for mushrooms and the children were most interested in these - wouldn't it be great to know which ones were edible, then we wouldn't need to scare them away from them all! Once we had enough we headed for a bench in the woods and set up our shop. Rusty old weighing scales came into their own, as did egg-boxes (conkers make great shiny eggs), and of course the littler ones did their usual thing of tipping over boxes of produce, then racing off to run up and down hills/bash their heads on branches/get lost.

Next week Bryony will be in charge! I can't wait!

Our beloved Queen Victoria

Our beloved Queen Victoria
We sometimes bow to her before we set off into the woods!