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The blog is a little out of date!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!

No comments:

Our beloved Queen Victoria

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