Nursery Find Lost Beasts

This week, before we headed out to the Forest School, Miss Rowe showed the children how to make sticky clay and paint from mud we dug out of the garden.

We put the mud into a tray and mixed it up, flour is added to help pull the mud together. As the moisture in the mud activates the gluten in the flour the mud takes on a clay like consistency, perfect for moulding with sticky hands. To transform this into paint the children then added water, a little bit at a time with lots of stirring in between so that we made sure to get the right consistency. The children tested it at various stages until they were happy it would work with a paintbrush. Of course brushes are fine but there’s nothing like getting those little hands stuck in!

We then got on our coats and boots and headed outside. Miss Rowe had explained to the children that she was concerned that all the mini-beasts had “moved out” because she couldn’t find any! Could they have been scared off by the chickens? the children asked. Maybe a fox had got all the slugs? The children reassured Miss Rowe that they could find all the creatures because they knew where to look, dark, wet places, they said, so we set off on a hunt.

The children were very proud that they were proved right. They found loads to minibeasts, slugs and snails, centipedes and earwigs, spiders and woodlice, worms and flat worms and even some millipedes. Lots of creepy crawlies so Miss Rowe can relax safe in the knowledge that they hadn’t gone, they were just hiding. Of course not all children like these kinds of bugs so those children hung out in the hammocks and swings. Nothing more relaxing than swaying to and fro looking up at the clouds.