Very Young Friends of West Bank Park

The new play equipment is finally here!

2011-04-18T01:42:00.001-07:00

The fundraising and tendering process has been a long one, but finally most of the new play equipment is in the playground. See right for some of Elly Ross' beautiful photos of the kids in the group enjoying it.

There have been a few hiccups - bamboo posts being torn out of the ground by someone who didn't fancy watching whatever was on telly that night (we suppose), and the much-longed-for children's bird hide not turning up yet. This has now been re-ordered, so let's hope it's there soon.

In 'Other News', I (Catherine) am on 'maternity leave' from the group till about mid-June, so a fabulous rota of other group members having been leading sessions since March. Every one I've been at has been great. New members always welcome at any time!

Winter 'Wonderland' wearing a bit thin...

2010-12-22T04:00:00.000-08:00

What a winter!!! Snow is indeed fun to play in, but after four weeks it is starting to lose its charm for our intrepid band of woodland explorers. As the chorus of freezing-toed toddlers reached a peak, we have had to beg the church hall for our last few Thursdays. We finished off 2010 with a Christmas party, making Advent wands and singing lots of carols.

Before the freeze hit in late November, the autumn was a busy and lovely time, with an always large group of children and parents meeting every week. We watched the birds; we had treasure hunts and Gruffalo walks; we made garlands and autumn decorations; we created imaginative (and lardy) bird and animal feeders; we constructed pulley systems and filled our little wicker baskets with all kinds of treasures; we set up woodland shops; we did our 'laundry' and hung it out to dry.....

Meanwhile, we have also been very busy with our plans for improving the playground. Our fundraising efforts came to a creditable £7200, including a ward committee grant, a generous grant from the Rowntree Foundation, and four other local charitable trusts. This is not a huge amount in playground terms, but enough for a nice little area of timber climbing/balancing equipment in the wooded part of the playground - known as a 'Trim Trail'. We wrote a brief for the job and sent it to five local companies, all of whom met us on site and four of whom bid for the work. We have chosen our favourite and passed the details on to the council - we hope to see progress over the winter.

We will keep you posted!

Meet The Trolley

2010-06-10T14:21:00.000-07:00

Yes, we have a new member - a wheely trolley to carry all our kit! In fact we never get to wheel it as our muscular three-year-olds covet this job. The Trolley (it has to have a capital T) lives in the park store and will enable us to start collecting useful resources for the children to have on hand every week - ropes, baskets, tarps, string, useful shells and stones, and so on. Please be in touch with any suggestions for what else we should buy to put in it.

This month the Trolley has provided tarps for us to sit and paint flags on (out of old terry nappies I fear); ropes to construct pulley systems to hoist things between trees, baskets to gather fairy-constructing materials. Thanks to all who made beautiful fairies out of sticks, clay, raffia, ivy, blossoms etc - they looked great as part of the 'Wonderland' display at Fiesta in Parliament St last weekend.

We have been asked to act as a case study for good practice in Early Years creative arts - very exciting - might mean we get a film made about us! It is not that we are mostly an arts group, but I think it is true to say we use arts (singing, stories, crafts, exploring natural objects) to help our children get to know nature and the park. So if you are approached to give an interview, please say yes!

Babes in the Springtime

2010-05-11T13:52:00.000-07:00

This spring has seen a great input of new members and a great atmosphere in the group, as well as lots of new ideas and activity. Many of the new families have very young children around the 1 year mark, which is just brilliant. This coincides with one of our members, Laura, having written an excellent booklet for parents and childminders called 'Babes in the Woods', full of ideas on how to make the most of babies and young toddlers' experiences in nature.

Also this spring, we have been trying to develop a more 'Forest Schools' type approach to our group, giving the children more freedom to play in the woods or the meadows with basic materials (baskets, water, ropes, etc) we bring with us. We've been building fairy houses, constructing complicated pulley systems between trees, mini-obstacle courses, doing our laundry. Singing a lot of songs too, of course!

With 'Forest Schools' in mind, we've also been plotting to improve the little children's playground at the park, to provide more opportunities for cooperative play. We've been awarded £3000 by the council and are fundraising to many local trusts, as well as the National Lottery, to try and get enough for several new pieces of equipment, and funds to publicise them locally.

New members have brought new talents - thanks to Katherine for all her work on the funding bids, and Elly for putting her professional photography skills to use.

Last week though, it was back to basics with a good bit of Maypole dancing around a very humble little tree near the Story Trees. Photos (beautiful ones taken by Elly) to follow as soon as we can work out why we can't upload them!

Movers and shakers

2010-02-04T12:13:00.000-08:00

Snow, ice and fog....but we battle on! There hasn't been a week with fewer than three families turning up to the group, which considering the weather we've been having is a true marvel. And more than that, we have been getting involved in the future of our dearly beloved park.

Today we met with Brian Williams, the council's 'Playgrounds Czar', to discuss the princely sum of £3000 of Ward Committee funding that we have received to improve the little children's playground. Many, many ideas were generated - treehouses, tunnels, dens/wendy houses, bird hides, obstacle courses, additional carriage for the 'bus', roundabout, 'bark pit' with pulley system....Brian was very helpful and will be supplying us with some costings and further ideas. And some group members are keen to investigate the possibility of matched funding, which would of course be fantastic! One very popular option was a sort of obstacle course made of logs and chains, meandering through the trees, possibly including a tunnel. Exciting stuff.

This winter has also seen rumblings in the council over budget cuts, and a threat to the Park Rangers team, including Stephen Whittaker who supports all volunteers and staff at West Bank Park. We had our very first 'Very Young Friends' demo - well, sort of - it was more of a friendly photo-opp with brightly coloured banners - and we couldn't even hold it in the park because of ice. But whether or not we had anything to do with it, the axe has been removed from the Rangers' heads and they are safe for another year at least. Everyone was extremely relieved to hear this - the Rangers keep the Parks developing, alive, hubs of their community - they organise events and educational work in the Park - they develop the parks' ecology, their playgrounds, they attract funding...

Personally, I was delighted that the children who got involved in this mini-political campaign, including my own, had the positive experience that their voices can be listened to.

On a quieter note, we have been doing the usual digging for worms, building fairy houses, and roaming through the woods. And lots and lots of singing!!! The children in the group at the minute are passionate singers.

A slightly soggy winter

2009-12-16T03:23:00.000-08:00

After that lovely autumn we had, the weather has been a bit more challenging for the last month or so, but we have still had some nice Thursday mornings in West Bank Park, for example:

* Water-painting - an old favourite this. All you need is paintbrushes and pots of transparent 'magic paint' from your tap. You can paint tree trunks and they go a lovely dark colour. However, the cold drove us home early, and drove me to send out a reminder to everyone to wear twice as much clothing as they think necessary for our meetings over the winter!

* Moon and star mobiles: Take a long stick, some cardboard cut-out moons and stars, some used tin foil in silver and gold, and some bits of wool. Wrap the moons and stars in foil and hang them from the stick, along with pine cones etc if you like. It makes a lovely backdrop for a story, especially if hung in a tree.

* Advent wands: practically a tradition with us now in early December. We gathered long, stout sticks and lots of greenery (holly, bay, pine, etc) to twine around them. Tied it up with colourful pipe cleaners and ribbons. They do look lovely, and featured in a story about Santa Claus using his magic wand to cast a spell on poor old Granny's Christmas tree, with the help of some spiders, to make it sparkle with the very first tinsel.

* This week is our Christmas party. Another 'tradition' is to decorate a tree in the woods and sing carols to it. After doing that, we'll head over to Holgate Methodist Church and its nice warm hall, for some crafts and party food.

From mosaics to windmills

2009-11-09T03:11:00.000-08:00

Another very lively few weeks for our group. We've had:

* a trip to Holgate Windmill with the wonderful Jen Hay. She gave us all a try at grinding corn with a pair of stones, then with a quern (that was a real technological innovation, let me tell you!), and then we looked at how the windmill works. She told us the story of 'The Mill That George Built', complete with some impressive props, and the children coloured in some pictures of the windmill in bright colours. We sponsored one panel of the new sails, and have a smart certificate to say so! (unfortunately we also caused a minor breakage - the perils of toddlers!)

* leaf printing - thanks Nikki Humberstone and Janey Stockdale for organising this. The children really enjoyed making lovely, overlapping artworks in different colours of paints, using different kinds of leaves. Activities like this can get them in quite a dreamy state, which is to be treasured.

* bird feeder making, using pine cones, sticky 'orrible lard and seeds. There were not many children this week, but sometimes that can make for an unexpectedly fun morning, as happened on this occasion. They led us a merry dance round the woods, jumping up and down slopes covered in fallen leaves.

* More Magical Mosaics! - the splendid Mary Passeri came back for a final fling with us, and we made secret hidden mosaics in the woods. The children's enthusiasm and attention span for this was really wonderful to see. It being half term, we had some robust 4, 5 and 6-year-olds to help out. They especially enjoyed hammering old tiles to smithereens through an old blanket - as pictured. We made one final one all together in a top-secret very-well-hidden place. Mary - we will miss you!

* Planting in the wildlife area. The council has given the Friends of West Bank Park a generous budget to plant some nice-smelling, insect-attracting herbs in this area. We took part in the selection of plants, and today we got planting, with a little help from our Parks Officer Stephen Whittaker, and Margaret Weeden from the Friends. Thanks to both, as we really did enjoy this and it means a lot to the children to have contributed to making the park an even better place. They will all come back and point out which sage plants they planted, and where their snowdrops are hiding in the soil, waiting to come out after Christmas!

'Fall'-ing into bad habits...

2009-10-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yes, eagle-eyed readers will observe that this is the first blog post in 7 weeks - a lot to update on! The excuse, as usual, is that we have been extremely busy in the Very Young Friends, and especially with finishing our community art project along with the Council, Pine Trees day care centre and the 'grown-up' Friends of the Park. I hope to include a picture of the finished mosaic itself, as soon as it is actually mounted in the park!

What else has the group been up to?
* A musical instrument day - making shakers using old containers and woodland treasures such as beech nuts and pine cones to fill them. Thanks Nikki for leading this session.
* A Berry Day - first we had a good look at all the different kinds of berries growing in the Park and what they are good for - from snowberries which really go 'splat' when you stamp on them, to blackberries which are delicious, to rowan berries which are magical and good for making trails, to hawthorn berries which are great for the birds but very prickly, to elderberries which make good jam, to guelder rose berries which taste disgusting, to yew berries which really ARE poisonous (all you can do with them is throw them away into the hedge very quickly). We made our own 'berries' using potatoes and colourful fleece, hid them and laid trails to them with the rowan berries.
* A Yoga Day! Laura Potts, experienced yoga teacher, led us in some Story Yoga, using positions like 'the camel', 'the tree', 'the dog', and 'the dog having a wee'. What more can I say?! We all greatly enjoyed this, appreciated the good stretch, and most of the kids even joined in!
* A Three Little Pigs Day, led by Laura Barrett, in which houses were built of straw and sticks and got blown in!
* An Apple Day - we gathered windfall apples, washed them and sliced them and hung them up to dry. A little bit challenging for our smallest members, but it's good fun to go foraging.

I am definitely missing a few here but that's enough for now!

Summer shenanigans

2009-08-13T14:57:00.000-07:00

What have we been up to during the summer holidays? What HAVEN'T we been up to? The weather has not always been on our side, but it doesn't usually seem to matter. For me the highlight has to be today's blackberry picking and blackberry-pancake-feast, then seeing so many of the children enthusiastically participating in the story of the 'Flippy Floppy Pancake' by tearing around the clearing chasing an imaginary pancake.

But we have also made some surprisingly appealing rose petal perfume (and dabbed it behind our ears), gone digging for creepy-crawlies, begun a whole saga of stories about the hedgehog Mr Snuffles and his friends, and made soup for the fairies. On this occasion a few of the children even SAW some fairies coming out of a hole in a tree, but no adults were watching at the time.

Unfortunately my children and I missed the two late-July sessions - making extremely messy and colourful sand pictures one week, and building houses from straw, sticks and bricks (a la 3 Little Pigs) the next, I believe. Hopefully Lauras M and B can give fuller details on these in a future blog entry.

In addition to our usual Thursday meetings, the annual Play Day for children of all ages was enjoyable and well-attended. As well as helping Mary Passeri gather people's impressions of the park on clay 'maps' for the art project, we sent pairs of adults and children off on the game of 'Blind Man's Tree'. This is always a winner, no matter how cynical the adult or hyperactive the child. It goes as follows:

- the adult is blindfolded and the child leads them, by a circuitous route, to a tree of their choice in the park, trying not to let them get injured on the way!
- The adult gets to know the tree without removing their blindfold - by feeling its bark and girth, maybe taking a rubbing of it, smelling it, feeling its leaves or flowers
- The child leads the adult back to the starting point and removes the blindfold.
- The adult must then find 'their' tree. They always manage it!

Midsummer frolics

2009-06-28T03:21:00.000-07:00

This being around the second anniversary of the Very Young Friends, we are starting to establish some traditions. So this midsummer, like last year, we went to a little grove of trees beside the grassy area of the park, which looks a bit like a campsite and has lots of hidey holes and logs to climb around. The children gathered sticks and pinecones for a midsummer 'fire', and built it up very nicely. A ring of pine cones around the outside to contain it. We positioned tea lights in it and lit them, then each child 'jumped' the fire with a bit of help: "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jumped over the candlestick" (acknowledgements to Dot Male for that idea!).

The sticks then served a different purpose, got tied together with colourful wool, flowers and other bits and bobs to make fairy webs, traps and suchlike.

We had a lovely singing session this week too. There is a very monotonous but sweet song: Zum-a-zum-a-zee, buzzy buzzy bee, Buzzing through the flowers, In the daylight hours, Zum-a-zum-a-zee..." which goes on forever and ever. All the children - even the usually shy ones - took pine cones to act as bees, and buzzed them around from flower to flower all around the little grove of trees. We sang about 10 rounds of that song and then thought it was safe to stop, when they shouted: "Keep singing!" And we had to keep going for what seemed like ages. They were in their own little world, being bees.

Working hard

2009-06-21T14:33:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's good to take advantage of things that are happening in the Park anyway. We heard that the Conservation Volunteers would be here this Thursday clearing and resurfacing part of the wildlife area. There is nothing little children love like watching those kind of jobs. So we went to spy on them, all 20 of them with their spades and rakes and hammers and wheelbarrows and (best of all) chainsaws. And when we'd had enough of that we went to do some chalking on the paths nearby.

It was lovely, apart from anything, to see the park so full of people - as well as us and the volunteers, there were a couple of school classes on a trip, lots of parents in the playground, council staff at work and so on.

Last week, we were also hard at work building a den in the woods. To be strictly truthful, the mums were more enthusiastic about the task than the children. But that is OK! They helped us drag big sticks over, and gave their criticisms, and pointed out when things were falling down. And, as usual, they ran away off over the root stumps and mounds by themselves.

ELDERFLOWERS

2009-06-07T14:06:00.000-07:00

This year, like last, we set to making elderflower lemonade at the bench in front of the rockery, opposite which are some conveniently situated elder bushes. The smell is so tempting and the children's hunter-gatherer instincts come to the fore. You literally can't stop them looking for more to 'put in the basin'.

It is a good task for little children because there are several interesting stages which need lots of concentration and cooperation, and awaken all their senses:
- picking the flowerheads (about 30)
- removing the flowers from their stems
- squeeeeeeeeezing the lemons (about 4)
- adding some sugar (about 6-10 teaspoons)
- stirring in the hot water (about 2 litres)
- tapping on the pot lid to 'make the taste come out of the flowers' (not strictly necessary that one)
- having a story while waiting for it to cool down (thanks Laura for Hamda's surprise which everybody loved)
- lading the juice through a funnel into a jug
- drinking it!

This is a very approximate recipe which takes about an hour from picking to drinking. You can also make cordial (which will last a year or more) and champagne (2 weeks to turn alcoholic and drink it quick before it explodes) - look online for recipes.

The butterflies and the bees

2009-06-07T14:01:00.001-07:00

Clare is clearly a dab hand with a hacksaw. She brought in lengths of drainpipe just right for solitary bee residences, and plenty of straws and canes to stuff them with. The children set to this task with glee. She also had them making butterfly feeders, using pieces of cotton wool dipped in sugar water to tempt them. We made a few spare to hang around the clearing in the park -let's see if they get colonised.

The worms in our plastic-jug wormery appear to be doing OK in their new home, although it is difficult to tell with worms (as Winnie the Pooh might have said). Bryony brought it in for inspection, and none of them tried to escape back to their old woodland home. The children were curious to see them. If, as planned, we do some planting this autumn in the wildlife area, it will be good to use the wormery's compost as a contribution to the bed.

May events

2009-05-25T13:45:00.001-07:00

We have had a sometimes wet but fun month of Thursday mornings in the Park.

7th May: MAYDAY! We decked out a small tree with colourful ribbons as a Maypole, gathered armfuls of willow twigs to make crowns, and decorated them with all kinds of beautiful spring flowers. The children looked - as ever - very fetching in their crowns, and I got out my rusty tin whistle to play some jigs for them to dance round the Maypole to. It felt like we had really seen the summer in.

14th May: ARTIST DAY! Mary Passeri and Colin Widdup came to our group, as part of the ideas-gathering stage of the community mapping project. Mary had an ingenious idea,which is a bit hard to describe: first she strung a little net between two bamboo canes stuck in the ground, a bit like a mini tennis net. We gathered 'the biggest leaves in the wood' and lots of small ones and flowers too. Then, using clothes pegs, pipe cleaners, wire and leaves, we made all sorts of little creatures - butterflies, action heroes, princesses. We entangled these in the netting until it was completely covered, a bit like a mosaic really. Extra leaves in the top for battlements and feathers here and there for featheriness. It was a gorgeous thing and I hope someone has a picture of it. Mary rounded the event off with the wonderful story of 'Snotty Lottie' which I am still getting told by my kids.

21st May: WORM COMPOST DAY! Bryony and I were quite taken with the idea of having our very own Very Young Friends wormery. So she bought a clear plastic jug with a lid at St Leonard's Hospice, and made holes in the bottom. We filled it alternately with wet newspaper, sand, leaf mould and - the magic ingredient - we needed worms. Well if there is one thing we know how to do well....the kids found 30, no 40, no 50 worms with their little trowels and threw 'em in. To give them something tasty to eat we ate apples and gave them the cores. Bryony took it home for its first week, and we will all get our turns to look after the wormery. As the jug is clear, we should be able to see the worms mixing the layers and turning them into compost.

Easter Time

2009-05-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

I'm behind schedule with this post!, but thought I would add what we got up to at Easter time. On Thursday 9th April Laura arranged an Easter Egg Hunt through the woods. The children hunted for boiled eggs in the undergrowth, then took their collection to the meadow where they decorated the eggs and made nests to put them in. Laura told a great story 'The Easter Chick' about a chick wanting to be born on Easter Sunday. We finished off with songs and a little bit of chocolate!

Thursday 16th April
In an effort to get the sun shining we decided to have sunny activities today. We started by collecting interesting leaves and feathers to make suncatchers, these were stuck down together with tissue paper and glitter to make beautiful works of art! Then we moved on to planting sunflower seeds, which is easier said than done with ten children wanting to tip out the compost and find the seed again! Hopefully we all had a sunflower seed in a pot to take home and have a sunflower making an appearance! posted by Bryony

Take a bowl of water...

2009-05-03T09:34:00.001-07:00

Since we have been given the keys to the park store, it is much easier for us to get water whenever we want - a vital ingredient of a satisfying morning's business n the woods. A couple of weeks ago we set up washing lines between trees and spent a happy hour doing laundry. I ripped up some old blouses into small rags, sawed a block of soap into small pieces and the kids really worked very hard to get them 'clean' (well, wet and covered in soil really, but it is the thought that counts!) Pegging up is a whole other challenge. Small toddlers get on better with 'peg dolly' type pegs, older ones can manage the sprung type. Anyway - lots of fun. And the children are getting very good at a German song about washerwoman:

Sie waschen, sie waschen, sie waschen den ganzen Tag (they wash all day long)
Sie wringen,...... (they wring out)
Sie haengen.... (they hang up)
Sie tanzen..... (they dance)
Sie schlafen..... (they sleep)

This past Thursday, it was water again, this time to see if cherry blossom makes good perfume. It doesn't, really, not if you're looking for something to wear with a cocktail dress, but it is very absorbing and fun to stir!

Spring frolics in the Park

2009-04-07T02:23:00.001-07:00

We've had a lovely few weeks (so lovely, that I haven't had time to update our blog) in the Park, marred only by the fact that the Break in the Park Cafe has now closed - we will miss all the staff and trainees almost as much as we will miss their baking and hot coffee on cold days...

On Thurs 19th March I had planned to do tree bark rubbing, and indeed we did that, for a little while. But our nest was still there, and some spirit moved me to bring our play tent to the park as well. The children decided to set it up on the nest itself, and they 'built a fire' among the felled stumps and logs beside it. We (parents) were getting told off for going too near it.

The 26th was an important day with an important task to be done, but we got side-tracked by Holly's suggestion that we should look for pine cones. Off we went on a hunting expedition and found alder, fir, and large mysterious egg-shaped cones as well as pine. But we couldn't stay there forever - it was our last session before the cafe was to close, so we held a little ceremony to thank then and say goodbye. We made cards, using leaves we had gathered and pressed in the autumn, and paper flowers for each trainee or member of staff, and we sang them some of our favourite songs.

This past Tuesday, 2nd April, was a similar story - there was work to be done (in this case, making a felt picture) but we got side-tracked by the frogspawn - again - in fact we have been checking up on them every week for a month or so. The spawn keeps getting eating but the undaunted frogs keep returning for another go. Let's hope some of it survives to froggy maturity.

The Felt picture was a bit of a challenge until we gave up on trying to involve the children. Once they were busy playing 'What's the time, Mr Wolf?' things went a lot more smoothly. The adults laid out the fibres - first east to west, then north to south, then a coloured 'design' layer of flowers and patterns. Then we wet it with soapy water and the kids could join in again, with the rubbing - first gently, then more vigorously, till it turned to a lovely cloth!

Nesting time

2009-03-13T02:16:00.000-07:00

Spring has definitely sprung in the park. The birds are going mad, the frogs are still spawning as if there were no tomorrow. We saw a little coal tit building his or her nest, lovely and round and soft by the looks of it. Then we built our own, and I have rarely seen such hardworking birds as those who were racing around gathering branches, bindweed, leaf litter and grass to make it just perfect. It was big enough for all the children to sit in for their story. But there was further work to be done. Where we planted bulbs two years ago, and daffodils and crocuses are now blooming beautifully, we planted some more. The children are really a gang of hard workers!

Events in the York Literature Festival at West Bank Park

2009-03-09T13:44:00.001-07:00

This year West Bank Park has made its (to our knowledge) debut in the York Literature Festival with two events, a Spring Story Walk for adults and children, and 'Stories and Rhymes for Mad March Hares' for under-5s and carers. Both were on days of brilliant weather and were equally brilliantly attended - around 50 people each time trooping around the park listening to stories, poems (some real, some totally make-believe) from Anneliese Emmans Dean, Nettlefoot Kate (that's me!), Rosemary and Margaret from the 'big' Friends. See right for a few lovely photos.

FROGS!!!

2009-03-01T09:02:00.001-08:00

The park is really waking up for spring: the bulbs have poked through and are starting to bloom, the birds are going crazy, and now, most excitingly of all, the frogs are spawning in the wildlife pond. We went, of course, to witness this spectacle. I personally had never seen so many frogs in one place - 20? 25? at least, climbing all over each other, blubbing up and down and all over the mass of frogspawn - neither the children nor the adults could believe their eyes. We lifted out some eggs in a jar and the children poked (some gingerly, some enthusiastically) at them.

Inspired by this, we went off to see what other wildlife we could find in the earth of the woods. We dug with spades and poked with sticks. We found earwigs, slugs, millipedes, tiny translucent snails, thousands of woodlice. An enormously long worm that didn't like being poked. The more craftily inclined among us made some creepy-crawlies of our own, using the time-honoured cutting-up-egg-boxes method.

On a sadder note, we have just discovered that our beloved cafe is to close in April. It will be sorely missed, especially on cold days. Anyone with any ideas to mark its passing and thank the staff for all they have done for us - let me know.

Timber!!!

2009-02-07T03:07:00.000-08:00

West Bank Park is the scene of some rather dramatic tree surgery at the minute - men with tractors and diggers schlepping about through the woods and clearing lopping off enormous branches, sawing them up and hauling them around. It is probably just to prevent branches falling the next time heavy winds come, but the clearing has no bit of grass left and it is a bit alarming to watch the woods being so interfered with. For the adults, that is - the children are of course FASCINATED. But I personally will be relieved when they are gone.

However, we have to make the best of things, and the fact is that the clearing is surrounded by large and interesting lumps of wood in little groups. So we brought along toy cars and animals, and set up our own little road system of long logs, thin branches to make wobbly bridges between them, planks as 'slides'. At first it was the adults doing this, the children looking on bemused. Then a light went on and they rushed to play. Some had really good ideas: a wooden horse needed a bed and got one made of sawdust on the side of a quiet 'road'; a cow got a lean-to shelter built for it with twigs; more branches that were just the right shape or length needed to be sought out from the undergrowth. I think we will definitely repeat this activity at a later date.

Meanwhile, some of the children helped me 'wake up the bulbs' with some little bells - the snowdrops are just peeping out now. One little girl was perplexed that they didn't spring out straight away when she rang the bells - that is one for her mum to explain, I think. And some enthusiastically fed the birds in the wildlife area - what lucky birds to get such fistfuls of grain!

But by this time it was snowing hard, and too cold for most of us adults, so we went to the cafe for our story (about an old woman feeding the birds in her garden, of course) and lots of songs and rhymes.

New Year safari

2009-02-01T12:49:00.000-08:00

This week was Chinese New Year. Laura treated us to the story of how the Chinese years got their names: how the Emperor asked twelve animals to run a race across the river, and named the years in the order they arrived on the other side. She gave the children masks to wear, to 'be' the animals, and afterwards we went 'hunting' animals in the woods - wooden and plastic animals that had been planted there by me and my kids just ten minutes earlier, obviously! But my kids were no less surprised than any of the others to 'find' them hiding in bushes and on tree stumps!

Then we adjourned to a secluded corner of the woods to get down to some tree-painting, using that expensive craft material, tap water. As long as it's a dry day this works beautifully, as the bark changes colour quite dramatically.

Also in attendance this week was one of the artists who is bidding for our art/mapping project this spring and summer. He quizzed us all about what we might like to see on the map he will produce if he gets the contract. Don't forget about the meeting on the 19th Feb to decide between the various bids (1pm, Rowntree Park cafe)

PUDDLES!!!

2009-01-24T13:49:00.000-08:00

We did have something else planned for this week but the RAIN intervened. Well, there's no point in getting upset about it. Three brave families did turn up at the Park, despite the 'three raindrops' symbol on the weathermap, and obviously the theme of the morning was puddles. We all got sticks and found a good puddle - not too shallow, not too deep, not too small, not too big, just right for stirring. Then we found things to drop in to make a really tasty soup: berries, rotting beechnuts, crabapples, dead leaves, you know the sort of thing. There were a lot of arguments initially about who got the best berries or who got to mash the apple with their welly boot, but gradually the children started to cooperate a bit better and got very absorbed.

That puddle did keep us busy for a good long time - in fact, I think the children would have stayed there all morning. But adults have such short attention spans...so we headed off to the cafe to make pretend puddles with cardboard, glue and wool of various muddy colours. Then a really rowdy and vigorous singing-time and home we went.

Sometimes the rainy days are the good ones!

Wild boys of the woods...

2009-01-18T07:35:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is about boys, but there is definitely something...
Although it was cold, we stayed outside this Thursday and played in the woods. Ostensibly we were making percussion instruments with biscuit tins, and playing dressing-up races, but in fact, the BOYS were just going mad hurtling up and down the story tree mounds, stealing biscuit tins from each other, throwing minor and major tantrums. The poor (few) little girls were looking on wondering what on earth was going on.

It can sometimes be tricky to strike the right balance in wintertime, between 'planned' and 'unplanned' activities, crafts and free play. Luckily singing time is always a hit with most children and brings us all back together (with some of the wild boys as the band)!

Making Suncathers, 8 January 2009

2009-01-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

This week was a very exclusive meeting of the Very Young Friends, consisting of myself (Bryony) Erin and Iona! The plan was to make suncatchers, so with everything prepared we went ahead, the sun even shone so we could try them out!

December doings

2008-12-22T12:14:00.000-08:00

Oh dear...bad habits are forming and whole weeks are going by without this blog being updated...but first of all a great big HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all Very Young Friends, and their families, from not-quite-sunny Germany where I am writing this!

We had two quiet weeks at the beginning of December. On the 4th we ended up at my house, the weather being bad and the cafe being closed, making some rather wonderful snowmen out of small plastic drinks bottles. This, Ruth´s idea, worked very well even with the younger toddlers. We glued cotton wool all over the bottles, then all sorts of bits of paper, felt, sequins and glitter in the time-honoured fashion. They looked splendid and the kids got very absorbed.

On the 11th it was so cold and miserable that the few of us who did turn up just headed for the playground and tried to keep warm by throwing leaves at each other, but we didn´t hold out long!

But the 18th was another matter. We celebrated Christmas in grand style. First we searched through the woods for suitable trees to decorate, with plenty of branches within toddler reach. I had brought some baubles and tinsel which a kind lady from the Freecycle list no longer needed. All the children really enjoyed decorating the yew trees near the story tree. The story of the little fir tree who wanted to be beautiful and shiny like the other trees in the woods kept some children´s attention, although most were just dying to race up and down the hills (and did so). Then we practised some carols around our impromptu Christmas trees, so as to sing them more beautifully for the cafe staff later. We didn´t remove the decorations again till the children had headed off to the cafe with most of the parents, so they didn´t see their work destroyed! The cafe staff had prepared us some wonderful gingerbread men, and we decorated them with icing and sweeties and got sticky and sugary, before singing our carols as thanks. A jolly good time was had by all, as they used to say.

Those birds ought to be really happy now...

2008-11-28T14:03:00.000-08:00

Not only do we make all sorts of food and feeders for them, but now we make beautiful houses for them too. Well, paint them, anyway. I brought along some my husband had manufactured from some old fenceposts, and the children set to with brushes and paint. They really got absorbed in their task, and seemed to enjoy working together on it, until the houses looked more like bird-hippie-communes than respectable dwellings. Once they have been varnished we will see about getting them nailed to a tree in the park somewhere.

The park cafe had all its Christmas decorations out, including a beautiful tree with baubles and bells. So we had a story about Tante, a little old German lady who made Christmas magic for all the children and animals of her village with her wonderful Christmas tree. A little premature but we are really getting into the Christmas spirit now!

Log Bird Feeders Thursday 20 November 2008

2008-11-26T14:57:00.000-08:00

As winter seems to be well and truly here, the Very Young Friends decided to help out our feathered friends and make some bird feeders. Phil had kindly drilled a number of large holes through lengths of log for us to fill with our yummy mixture, lard and bird seed! The children took it in turns to pour in bird seed and mix with the lard, this was quite hard work for both large and small hands. The mixture was then spooned into the holes and ready to hang from a tree, lets hope the birds enjoy their stylish feeder!

November doings

2008-11-21T13:48:00.000-08:00

Apologies for the bloggy silence since the beginning of the month. It's not that nothing has been happening!

On the 6th Nov we did some cooking in the cafe - but not for ourselves, for the birds! We chopped cheese, apple, bread and other titbits for their delectation and mixed them together in a huge bowl. Well, most of us did. My son Patrick concentrated on stuffing himself with cheese....ah well. The following rhyme accompanied our work:
Chop, chop, choppity chop
Chop off the bottom and chop off the top
All the rest goes into the pot
Chop, chop, choppity chop!

The following week, 13th Nov, everyone - including Patrick, and therefore me - was sick. So there was no meeting that week, for the first time since Christmas week - normally the Very Young Friends are very hardy!

This week, 20th Nov, Bryony was in charge, much to my delight. We made wonderful bird feeders from logs with holes drilled in them. I will leave this to her to recount!

Halloween fun in the playground

2008-11-01T07:46:00.000-07:00

We had a proper Halloween party in the playground. Why the playground? Because it gets quite tiring, racing after toddlers to try and keep track of them in the woods, week after week, and the playground has a FENCE!!! So the children got busy gathering big sticks and small, and tying them together into broomsticks. I don't know how many would really fly, or even sweep up if it comes to it...

We then made 'apple men' by sticking twigs and cloves into apples. Some of them were really lovely little characters.

Pumpkin cake and ginger tea warmed us up a bit, but as the sky started to darken we decided to hurry the rest of the party along a bit. So we had our story - starring all the apple men. A little pumpkin gnome was looking for friends to celebrate Halloween with. The pine cones weren't very enthusiastic, but the apple men, hiding under the autumn leaves, all wanted to join in! A few quick songs and then RACE HOME OUT OF THE WET!

Autumn creativity

2008-10-26T13:18:00.001-07:00

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!

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

2008-10-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

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!).

Autumn Celebration a great success!

2008-10-06T01:53:00.000-07:00

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!

2008-10-06T01:46:00.001-07:00

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!

Bringing in the sheaves!

2008-09-29T13:33:00.000-07:00

This week we were playing with straw - this time it was not pinched from any nearby field, but legitimately bought in Acomb Pets (which I would recommend as a morning outing for a boisterous preschooler - watching the lizards being fed with live locusts will shut them up). The task: to make a corn dolly!

We started with the story of corn dollies: for centuries, people have worried as they cut down the last sheaf of their crops - leaving the fields desolate and lifeless - would nature help them again next year? It must have been very sad to look out on the stubbly, empty fields all winter. So they took that last sheaf and made it into a corn dolly to hang over their fireplace all through the winter.

Well, ours were a bit smaller. And held together with string. And for the younger members of the group, it was more practical and fun to stuff a piece of cloth with straw and draw the dolly's face on instead. And to be honest, the kids were in a running-around mood. So we took our dollies with us and headed for the Story Trees to risk life and limb climbing up and down the roots instead.

Newsflash: we have got our funding!

2008-09-21T12:12:00.000-07:00

We (and the Friends of Rowntree Park, and Pine Trees Day Care Centre) have received some good news: we have been granted the £1500 we asked the council's Active Arts Team for to do Community Mapping projects in each of our parks! We will work with an artist to produce beautiful maps, containing all our individual knowledge of the parks, that will stay on display as a record and to guide new visitors to the parks. What is the next step? We have to choose an artist! Anyone interested in sharing their ideas about the project, or just hearing more about it, is invited to a planning meeting with the council officers involved on Monday 29th Sept at 10am in the park cafe.

Another bit of breaking news: every year the Friends of West Bank Park ask a wood-carver to carve a tree in the Park - in previous years it's been a Green Man, a nymph, a lion, a totem pole...this year they have asked him to carve something low-down that even toddlers will be able to reach. He will be doing it on Sunday 5th October, 10am-4pm approx, near the New Lane entrance to the Park. Events like a Tree Walk, some live music, storytelling and refreshments are planned for those who come to watch him carve. So keep the date free to pop by!

The past two weeks have been fairly low-key at Very Young Friends. On 11th Sept we gathered some windfall apples and went to the cafe to - rather cheekily - cook our own lunch! We made couscous salad with fruit and cheese, and ate it all up (or most of it anyway). The children managed the hot water very well. The following week, my dear husband Andreas met a few of you in the playground for some good traditional swings-and-slides action.

Hope to see you this week!

Harvest time continues...

2008-09-06T01:51:00.001-07:00

It hasn't been such a good year for blackberries, but the zealous Very Young Friends found an incredible number in the Park this week. The difficult part is deciding whether to eat them yourself, contribute them to the shared pot of blackberry yoghurt, or put them in the mashing pan to make dye. Even more difficult is keeping little hands out of the yoghurt pot! But it was very impressive how even the smallest children managed not to touch the hot dye pan, but instead helped to blow on it and cool it down, hands carefully tucked behind their backs.

It was nice to watch bits of fleece turn pinky-purple in the dye, and hang them up on the line. We followed it up with the story of Tom Badger collecting paints from the end of a rainbow, and using them to transform all the houses in his village. Our rendition of 'I Can Sing A Rainbow' afterwards was (I thought, anyway) actually quite moving!

On another note, we are making an application for funding from the council for an arts project in the Park, along with the Friends of Rowntree Park and the Pine Trees day care centre. It would be something everyone, of all ages, could get involved in - not just the making of it, but also the design. The idea is to make a 'community map' of the park that would show everyone's favourite corners of it, where people used to play as kids, what their private names for this clearing or that mound are....if you are interested get in touch with me (catherine.heinemeyer@barkmail.com). We should find out by the end of September whether we have the funding.

All the best,

Summer goodbye

2008-08-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

Well, it seems that summer has got bored of us and decided to leave early this year. So we made the best of it by having our 'harvest'. We threshed wheat (thank-you to the farmer who incompletely cut his field on the way to Bishopthorpe) on a picnic blanket, and shelled lots of peas from my allotment, only some of which had maggots in them! Then we ground them into flour, made them into soup, bashed them with sticks, rolled them down hills and generally investigated them thoroughly! Of course this was followed by the story of the Little Red Hen and her farming adventures, ending with some REAL cake.

Otherwise this summer, some of us went on a trip to the Murton Farming Museum and enjoyed - I hear, I wasn't there - more real cake as part of a story by Rosemary.

For next week, my thoughts are turning to blackberries....what do you think?

Play Day: Wild Camp in the Woods!

2008-08-07T12:53:00.000-07:00

We are absolutely delighted with our 'Play Day', jointly run with City of York Council (that is, with our Parks Officer Stephen Whittaker and his van-full of equipment and tools!) which took place on Wednesday 6th August. The theme set for Play Days around the country was "Give us a go!" or 'Risk in Play'. We are good at risk, much better than we are at safety in fact, and did indeed give it a go.

We had a 'wild camp', with shelter building, tipis, assault course, bow-and-arrow making, natural dyes and foraging for food. An incredible number of children turned up - perhaps 100, aged from 0 up to about 13. It was great seeing all the kids and their parents throwing themselves into all the low-tech, down-and-dirty activities. The only shame was having to take down the wonderful swings, rope ladders, shelters and tunnels afterwards.

Thanks to Phil and Bryony, Rosemary, and Stephen Whittaker for all their hard work and enthusiasm! And now have a look at the pictures!

What's inside this....?

2008-08-01T05:26:00.000-07:00

At this time of year many plants are producing their berries, fruits and seeds and this week we had a look inside some of them to see what they are like. Sycamore 'helicopters' have a funny fluffy stuff in them, for example, and the 'bumpy bits' of blackberries have a lovely teardrop shape if you cut right inside them. It is hard work to pull pinecones right to bits but it can be done.

Then we made some little gathering pots out of air-drying clay, some of us imprinting them with berries and twigs, for future gathering expeditions - we are keeping an eye on those blackberries as they ripen!

NEXT WEEK, the day after our PLAY DAY on the 6th, there will be no group. The following week, the 14th, there will be a group - meet as usual at the bench - I won't be there but others will. Then, on the 21st, it will be our trip to Murton Park Farming Museum, for tractor and steam train rides, talking to their animals, and storytime in a Celtic village. Please write to me (catherine.heinemeyer@barkmail.com) if you are coming - I need to book the minibus!

Dinosaur Trail, 24 July 2008

2008-07-30T14:41:00.000-07:00

This week West Bank Park had some prehistoric visitors. They went into the woods, laid eggs, but forgot where! Luckily the Very Young Friends of West Bank Park were on hand to help. We all followed giant dinosaur footprints into the woods and collected eight different coloured eggs. The children (and adults!) enjoyed following the trail, searching the undergrowth when they saw a picture of a dinosaur, looking for the different colours and counting the eggs they collected. The dinosaurs were very grateful and rewarded us all with a certificate and cake. We await news of any hatchings!

After our snack we were full of energy and Rosemary taught us a French song with actions, 'Savez-vous planter les choux?' (Do you know how to plant cabbage?) and much fun was had trying to plant them with our hands, feet, nose and elbows!

Busy washerwomen (and men)

2008-07-14T01:32:00.001-07:00

This week we set up a little laundry right in the middle of the woods. The children got to work with a pile of rags (sorry, beautiful clothes!), a basin, and some soap. Each piece had then to be thoroughly wrung out and hung up on the washing lines we suspended between trees. It was a pretty sight to see them so busy, and closer examination revealed:
* 3- and 4-year-olds really conscientiously scrubbing, wringing and pegging away
* 2-year-olds trying their level best to copy them, particularly working on their pegging technique (it is not at all easy you know!)
* 1-year-olds mixing mud in the water, stirring it with big sticks, and then deciding it was time to go and race up and down some tree mounds instead.

Then we all learnt a German song, 'Die Fleissige Waschfrauen' (the busy washerwomen) with actions - some excellent pronunciation.
If anyone has any pictures of the session, please do post them up.

We are very fragrant this week...

2008-07-07T01:29:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday we had a brilliant time comparing all the roses in the Rose Walk and choosing the fallen petals from the ones we liked best, to make perfume (hands up who spent large swathes of their childhood making jars of this stuff and wondering why it went rancid in a few days). The children could hardly be torn away from the collecting job and we had vast quantities of petals to stir up in our bowl. Good thing too: one of the gardeners informed us that 'real' rose perfume uses 9000 petals per drop...
Stirring, sieving, and generally mashing the perfume was just as popular. Meanwhile other children were making more unusual fragrances from other herbs: sage, mint, lemon balm, blackcurrant leaves. Chopping and 'pestling and mortaring' these was hard work but entered into with gusto.
4-year-old Izzy had noticed a wonderful hidey-hole for storytime in the rose garden, so she led us there with the jingly bells, and we had the story of the traveller who taught the cross old woman how to make soup out of a nail. Song time was a bit cramped in there but it did not cramp our style!

What we have been doing this spring and summer

2008-06-30T02:02:00.001-07:00

Greetings everyone,

Below is part (2) of the rundown of our activities this year: March-June 2008. And then we will be up-to-date! Thanks to Bryony for the lovely photos of Iona planting bulbs and going on a Dick Whittington expedition, and for her suggestion sent by email for a future activity (a nature trail).

SPRING
06.03 World Book Day: a Gruffalo Walk through the woods with adults playing parts and children puppeteering (adults very enthusiastic, children more interested in racing around)
13.03 Bulb planting with our excellent Parks Officer Stephen Whittaker - in the woods this time - English bluebells, snowdrops and anenomes.
20.03 EASTER: decorating boiled eggs (children) and blown-out eggshells (adults) with coloured tape and felt pens, to make an Easter branch for the Park cafe; meanwhile Easter bunny was hiding chocolate eggs around the cafe for the children to find. Rosemary told 'The Ugly Duckling' with pictures of goslings and cygnets.
27.03 Playground brainstorming: met in the small children's playground and drew ideas for playground improvements on a large map - children took over and decorated the map their own way! Then a birthday story about Isobel (aged 4) and cake!
03.04 'Tracks and Trails': made trails using stones, cones, twine etc. then children followed each others' trails. Meanwhile visiting origamist Luke Segaran showing children how to make birds. Story about Granny and Max going on a night walk and leaving themselves a trail of shiny pebbles to find the way back home.
10.04 Making flags and Dick-Whittington-style travelling bundles with sticks and cloth, filling bundles with treasures (eg. pretty leaves, mandarin oranges) and going on an 'adventure' into the laurel bushes to eat them; looking for frogspawn in the wildlife garden (sadly all eaten by magpies!)
17.04 Ladybirds: colouring pictures of them, and dashing out between rain showers to find some real ones. Hanging up birdfeeder balls.
24.04 Pouring rain meant not too much happened this week...
01.05 RHYME TIME RAMBLE with Anneliese Emmans Dean (finally!!) A ramble through the woods with Anneliese's magic rhyme basket - we said an ode to Queen Victoria, 'wriggly wormed into the woods', had rhymes for the earthworms and spiders we found, and ended up at the Story Trees where we each had to make an offering of a very special feather, pinecone or leaf so the Trees would allow us to have a story there! Luckily they did - it was called 'Bim the Bird' and we loved it! See Anneliese's blog and lovely photos of the Rhyme Time Ramble at http://thebigbuzz.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/rhyme-time-ramble/
08.05 Making May Crowns from entwined willow twigs and fresh flowers - luckily the gardeners were removing some late primroses and polyanthus from the flowerbeds, so we helped ourselves to those and looked like kings and queens!
15.05 Making an obstacle course - not a tremendous success but the kids had a good time racing around the Story Trees!
22.05 Making perfume in a basin of water using what we could find: lemon balm, pine needles, blackcurrant leaves, and a bit of grass and soil....each child took some home in a mini-jam jar.
29.05 Painting on large unfolded cardboard boxes, the result used as scenery in the lunchtime performance of 'Compost - the Mini-Musical' by older children on a half-term holiday activity, which many VYFWBP parents and children stayed to watch.

SUMMER 08:
05.06 Making binoculars (using card and sellotape) and going birdwatching, using a picture guide Laura had made of the most common birds. Children enjoyed looking at pondskaters and spiders in the wildlife area too. Went to see the woodpecker nest where the babies were starting to poke their heads out to see how far they would soon need to fly down. We told a surprisingly successful story relay-style all together, about the woodpeckers and their busy parents.
12.06 Making elderflower lemonade, using hot water, lots of elderflowers, sugar and lemons - children enjoyed picking flowers off and squeezing lemons. Waiting a while during storytime, then straining and drinking the juice - most delicious!
19.06 MIDSUMMER PARTY under the pines and birches: decorating candles with coloured wax, then a picnic - with the candles lit for a few minutes, despite the wind!
26.06 Indian Day: made a teepee using long branches which fell during the stormy weather, propped against a tree stump and covered with cloths (pegged and stringed together!) Also headbands with feathers, and an Indian story ('Little Bear and Silver Star') and songs.

Well there we are! We have had a busy few months...

A rundown of our doings, July 07-June 08

2008-06-29T07:07:00.000-07:00

Here, in the briefest fashion, is a list of our main activities during our first full year.

SUMMER 07:
26.07 Making musical instruments by filling tins with cones, seeds etc
23.08 Picking BLACKBERRIES! Making blackberry yoghurt, dying wool with blackberry juice to make purple cardboard sheep - yes, indeed!

AUTUMN 07:
06.09 Making collages of fresh green leaves on huge sheets of cardboard; acting out 'The Gruffalo' with puppets
13.09 Going fishing: making rods with sticks, string and pine cone 'bait' (worked); making boats with corks, cocktail sticks and blutack (didn't work!)
20.09 Playing 'greengrocers', selling crabapples, rosehips, damsons, hawthorn berries, beech nuts, conkers etc, and weighing them out carefully!
27.09 Pretending to be squirrels: hiding nuts and hunting for them
4.10 Making a den with sheets, twine and clothes pegs between two trees, playing house inside it, decorating it with garlands of berries etc.
11.10 Painting pinecones and twigs with both artificial paints and our own manufactured ones (crushed rowanberries using pestle and mortar - nice orange colour!)
18.10 Making hidey-holes for hedgehogs - heaps of autumn leaves - and baiting them with lumps of cheese; making hidey-holes for children using cardboard boxes stuffed with leaves
25.10 Half-term party; making heaps of autumn leaves, carving pumpkins
1.11 Bulb planting with Parks Officer under the pine trees; planting holly berries and ash trees in trays to take home
8.11 Making leaf butterflies, using twigs, autumn leaves, coloured blutack, pine needles (as feelers) and stringing them up as mobiles
15.11 Making bird feeders by covering pine cones with peanut butter and sticking on pumpkin seeds, hanging them up on bushes
22.11 Making pictures with evergreen leaves (and discovering that the squirrels got the bird feeders!!!)
29.11 Making binoculars from toilet rolls, string and sellotape, and going birdwatching in the wildlife area and clearing

WINTER 07/08:
6.11 Making Christmas decorations in (and for) the Park cafe: pinecones covered with glitter and strung up on ribbons
13.12 Gathering evergreenery and making Advent Wands and a wreath for the cafe with them
20.12 CHRISTMAS PARTY - decorating delicious homemade gingerbread men in the cafe, then decorating a tree in the woods, and singing Christmas carols for the cafe staff
03.01 Building a snowman!
10.01 Making a garden on a tray using salt playdough, leaves, stones, sticks, grass etc, and adding animals to act out a story
17.01 Splashing in puddles, then making our own 'puddle collages' using wool and crayons on paper
24.01 Tracks and prints: making animal and dinosaur prints in playdough, then looking for real ones in the woods
31.01 Planned 'Rhyme Time Ramble' with poet Anneliese Emmans Dean cancelled because Park closed due to high winds - retreated to Cath's house for a cup of tea!!
07.02 Looking for worms and creepy crawlies in woods, collecting them in a bucket for better inspection, then made 'worms' in the time-honoured fashion using eggboxes
14.02 Joint Valentine's event with Very Young Friends of ROWNTREE Park - a visit to the university campus, feeding ducks, making heart pictures
21.02 Making 'Go-Grow' hand puppets to celebrate the first spring flowers - checking on our bulbs which were coming up nicely
28.02 Making a bird's nest big enough for all the children to sit in, from branches, moss and grass!

Whew! I think I will stop here and continue with spring in another post!!!

Welcome to the Very Young Friends of West Bank Park's BLOG!

2008-06-28T14:05:00.000-07:00

The Very Young Friends have been meeting at the same well-loved (and much abused) statue of Queen Victoria, every Thursday morning, for a whole year now. We have trekked off to different parts of West Bank Park's woods and meadows and got up to all sorts of things we wouldn't want our work colleagues to see us doing, like building nests big enough for five kids to sit in, or playing shops using crabapples and alder cones as currency.

It is time we had our own blog. It will be a way of reminding us of the things we do together as parents and children in the Park, both the activities our kids took part in really enthusiastically and those we were much more enthusiastic about ourselves (because both are important!) It might also be interesting to other parent and toddler groups, nursery schools or childminders who want to do more outdoors.

Please, fellow VYFWBPs, feel free to contribute to this blog whenever you like. For the next while I will keep myself busy posting my notes from the past year - up till now I have just written a paragraph about each session in a large, black, very scrappy 2003 diary. It would be great if you (or anyone else with good ideas) wrote in with your suggestions for other activities we could try.

I am looking forward to blogging!