Playwalks, term 3 2012, meeting at Paragon School, Tuesdays

Playwalks is an outdoor playgroup for parents and their pre-school children.  This Playwalk meets on Tuesdays at the Paragon School, 10.15 - 12.15 and is led by Barney.  Scroll down for diaries.


24th Jan:
Today our activities were MUD PLAY, FINDING A NEW CAMP and ROPE PLAY. The children were delighted by slipping over and becoming muddy on our walk up the paths. Mayah and Bethan were competing to be the muddiest. We felt like “real explorers”, as we pushed on past ‘Beech Camp to a new camp which we called ‘Holly Camp”. Annie was instrumental in facilitating a great game with the rope. It involved letting herself get tied to a tree; then tying all the children to the tree. Great fun.
17th Jan:
With two new families today our activities were FIRE SAFETY and ROPE SWINGS. We made our way up to ‘Beech Camp’ and made a nice fire, chatting about safety...staying calm, approaching the fire from the back and safely putting on fuel. We put up a small rope swing under the climbing tree and I demonstrated a nice way to hold the young ones on but still giving them the free swinging sensation. Tessa and Noah showed us the Norwegian way of keeping warm.
10th Jan:
On the way to “Beech Camp”, we identified Ear Fungus (Auricularia auricula-judae). Will said it was his ear.
Anna and her two children made their own confident way up the hill and they showed us a photo they’d taken of the same ear fungus that we’d seen. GREAT EXPLORING Anna.  We soon made a lovely camp. Everyone helped collect the different sizes of wood for the FIRE; STRING, PENCIL and THUMB. When we put fuel on, we approached the fire CALMLY, FROM THE BACK, with the smoke and flames blowing away from us.  Anna made a grill from tied-together hazel, splaying one end to do some FIRE-SIDE COOKERY on the white hot embers of our lovely winter blaze. We noticed how different the area was; muddy pathways now having been made through the carpet of beech leaves. Bethan played hide and seek in the branches of a large Beech (Fagus Sylvatica). Mayah and her sister Ava were involved in everything, equally, with their Dad, John, enjoying helping them and watching them PLAY.
There were more adult men today than adult women. WONDERFUL TIME for the children. The adults helped the young ones to strip bark off hazel sticks using VEG PEELERS. Nice designs, leaving some bark on. Asha sat happily on the earth and played with some small hazel twigs. We felt the moisture on the sticks and spoke about the way water travels up the tree. We put up a ROPE SWING and I showed Noah’s Dad, Andy, the CONSTRICTOR KNOT, a really effective double hitch that’s strong but also easy to take out when packing up your ROPE. Will helped me pull it down at the end, HAND OVER HAND.
We all helped PUT OUT THE FIRE and enjoyed “descending the mountain”. We emerged on the road and felt like we DISCOVERED a nice quick way back to the cars. The young ones had some WATER PLAY in a pipe that gushed out onto the road. Bethan was brave and nearly slipped in. Emma, Will’s nanny, was great at keeping Will SAFE at the same time as offering him FREEDOM to PLAY.