Campfire Jam and Wild Toast

At this time of year soft fruit is abundant and you might have some growing in your garden. If not there are plenty of farms where you can pick your own strawberries, raspberries or blackcurrants.

We love to make a super simple campfire jam from these fruits and serve them with wild toast. Unlike a true jam, this uses a small amount of sugar meaning it won’t keep for long. This doesn’t seem to be a problem though and a small batch usually disappears in a session!

To make a ‘Jam’ like this you simply add your cleaned fruit to the pan. Add a little water, but not enough to cover the fruit. Add several tablespoons on sugar depending on your taste and the volume of fruit. If you put in the juice of a lemon this will help it set. The mixture should then be simmered until the fruit has broken down and the jam begins to thicken. It can then be left to cool before eating.

We serve ours with Wild Toast cooked on the campfire. Nothing really beats it, but if you try this beware that it burns very quickly!

Celebrate the Bees

As it is Solitary Bee Week we have put all our Bee related activities on one post.

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White Tailed Bumble Bees are a common site, but they are only 1 of 270 species of Bee living in Britain.

270 separate species of Bees have been recorded in the UK. 90% of these species are Solitary Bees. The remaining 10% are made up of Bumble Bees and Honey Bees. Bellow is a picture of a Honey Bee and a Red Tailed Bumblebee.

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Solitary Bees live alone in holes in wood or in the ground. They don’t produce wax or honey, so they are actually better at pollinating than Honey Bees or Bumble Bees. This is because, unlike the other types of Bees, they don’t have pollen baskets. This means they drop lots of pollen. Solitary Bees are therefore crucial to our food chains and should be celebrated and protected.

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Bare patches of earth are great for Solitary Bees as many like to ‘mine’ a home.

Below are five ways you can celebrate and raise awareness of Bees.

Go on a Bug Hunt

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This ‘Wanna-Bee’ is actually a Hoverfly.

We shared a post in the Spring all about our passion for a Mini-Beast Safari. You could go on a bug hunt and pay special attention to the Bees. Can you spot any Solitary Bees? Can you see any places they might live? Can you tell the difference between a Honey Bee and a Bumblebee? Can you find any ‘Wanna-Bees’? These are insects that try to look like Bees as a form of defense! One way of identifying these is by their forward facing eyes. Bees eyes are always on the side of their heads. The Bumble Bee Conservation Trust have launched an app to help with Bee identification.

Make a Pine Cone Bee

This is one of our favorite activities and a lovely way to start talking about Bees.

Build a Mini-Beast Hotel (With a Bee ‘Wing’)

Solitary Bees need places to nest and you can add materials to a Mini-Beast Hotel that will suit them.

Make a Clay or Salt Dough Bee

If you want to make a Bee that is a little more anatomically correct than a Pine Cone Bee, you could have a go with clay or salt dough. How about finding some seed pods for wings? What could you use as eyes?

Earn Your Stripes

Visit the Solitary Bee Week website and pledge to help Solitary Bees. There is advice on the website ranging from how to plant a wild flower garden to how to raise awareness.

5 Ways To Make The Most Of Your Mud Kitchen

Today is international Mud Day today. This day was founded in an effort to make all the children of earth feel closer together through the uniting medium of MUD! Covered in mud we all look the same.

We have been passionate about mud play for a long time. It is sensory play the old fashioned way and requires digging, squeezing, mixing and pouring. Mud play builds resilience both physically and mentally. It requires imagination, team work and communication Most of our sessions feature a mud kitchen in some guise or other and its true that mud brings children together. Many a friendship has been made or cemented over a few mud pies.

Below we have shared five tips to get the most out of a mud kitchen at home.

Keep it clean

It might seem counter intuitive, but it is really important to clean your mud kitchen between play. There is nothing more unappealing than cooking equipment caked in old dried on mud or filled with smelly stagnant water. If you periodically wash the pots and pans then it will be much more inviting and will more likely be played with. It also sends a message to the child that they are valued and so is their play. You could incorporate the washing up into the play and provide some warm bubbly water towards the end.

Use top quality mud

You can’t create a perfect meal without good quality ingredients so its important to source the best mud you can. You could dig a mud pit in a corner of the garden or provide a bucket of potting compost. We think the best mud is Mole hill mud! Hunting for Mole hills, digging the fine soil and carrying it home in a bucket is an activity all by itself. Can you find the Mole’s hole beneath the soil?

Involve seasonal loose parts

Adding extra ingredients to the mud kitchen extends the play and keeps mud dishes seasonal! Flowers and blackberries make great mud pie decor on Summer days, pumpkin seeds and acorns are perfect in Autumn, pine cones and evergreen branches can be used in the Winter and catkins and pussy willow in the Spring. Its a little bit like an interactive seasonal nature table!

Up-cycle/recycle/reuse.

Although there are some beautiful mud kitchen on the market you really don’t need one. Old pots and pans do the job. You can ask friends and relatives if they are getting rid of any of these or have a look in charity shops. Some of the most dated items are often the best. We have a 1970’s Salad Spinner that brings great joy!

Children are generally happy to work on the floor, but you can make an easy kitchen counter by balancing a plank of wood over some buckets or logs.

Encourage role play

Playing in the mud kitchen gains an extra level and even more skills develop when the imagination starts to flow. Children could set up a pizza restaurant or a bakery and parents could be customers. Menus are written, prices are devised and communication skills advance. In fairness this tends to be an organic process and grown ups don’t need to force this. They just need to support it and play their role as the game emerges.

Most of all have fun and remember everything can be cleaned up (children included) at the end of the day!

Wild Dyes - Madder Root

We have experimented with many, many natural dyes in our time. It is one of those activities that seems really simple in principle, but in practice is a lot more tricky! Once you have had a go you realise why it is an art form! In fact one of our favourite textile artists India Flint has produced a whole book on the subject entitled Eco Colour. You might remember that Flint is the inventor of Hapa Zome, which has now become a much loved Forest School activity.

There is also a comprehensive section on natural dyes in the book Make It Wild by Fiona Danks and Jo Schofield. However, they admit their most impressive results were achieved using an indigo dye vat at a professional workshop

One natural dye we have found to be reliable and fun is Madder root. Madder is a plant that grows in Mediteranian regions and has a vivid red root. This has been used to dye fabric for centuries and can be bought in a powder form online.

We kept things simple and didn’t bother with a mordant to fix the dye, however we did use an aluminium pot as our dye vat. This may be why these items have kept their colour reasonably well.

We mixed the packet of powered Madder root with water and heated it all on the fire. Once simmering we added the fabric until it looked like it had changed colour. At this point we removed it and hung it out to dry. If we weren’t happy with the result we returned the fabric to the pot for another go.

We had a lovely afternoon dying some old stained tops and a couple of canvas bags. You can buy canvas bags online, but these have to be washed before you dye them.

A great thing about using Madder root was that there was lots of scope for experimentation. We tied some of the fabric with nylon string for a tie-dye effect. We also had a go at dip dying by leaving half the fabric in the pot longer than the other half.

We dip dyed by suspending the fabric in the vat with a stick.

You can also change the colour of the dye vat by changing its acidity. After our first attempt we added some vinegar and this gave us a more pink colour. We then added bicarbonate of soda to turn the mix alkali and this resulted in a browner red. Obviously this has to be done with care as the dye vat will be hot and by mixing in acid and alkali ingredients you can create a pretty active volcano!

Adding bicarbonate of soda to hot vinegar needs to be done with care!

This was a really fun activity and not only did we get to experiment with something new, but we breathed new life into some old clothes.

Deer Tracking

By Mel Evans

We recently shared a post about making a Footprint Trap to help discover what wildlife is living in your area. You might remember Kev captured a footprint of a deer and later filmed some footage using the Wildlife Camera.

Well, this week I came face to face with a very young deer. I was off to the meadow to pick Clover for Sun Tea when it came bounding towards me. It stopped, starred at me for a while and then turned and ran off again!

We were both surprised to see each other!

I was really keen to find out what type of deer it was and how many young are in the area so I started to investigate. There are some obvious tell tale signs that deer have been visiting and you can look out for them while walking in the woods or countryside.

Deer tracks are a great indicator and looking at the size of the footprint can even give clues to the age and type of deer that left it. I found these tracks accompanied by lots of deer poo!

Deer poo is small and round. It is highlighted in the top left corner above the track.

At this time of year you might find areas where the grass is very long. The deer leave corridors through the grass as they trample it. You can follow these paths to see where the deer are travelling.

This corridor led to a gap in the hedge.

I also found a ‘Deer Couch’ in the long grass, This is the flattened area of grass where a deer has laid. Mother Deer will leave their young sat hidden in the long grass while they go off to feed. The size of this couch indicates this might have been where my baby deer had been sat before I disturbed it.

Looks comfy!

Once I had put all these clue together I found a spot which looked like the deer were travelling through regularly. I set up my wildlife camera (the same as the one we have available to borrow) and was rewarded with some footage.

The film below show two young deer. Their bouncy tails indicate these are probably Fallow Deer. Although Fallow Deer are commonly tan with white spots they do some in three other colours. The ones i filmed are Melanistic Fallow Deer and are a beautiful chocolate brown near black. This means my ‘baby’ deer are Fawns. Not all types of deers’ young are called Fawns. Red Deer and Sika Deer have Calfs and Roe Deer have Kids.

If you are interested in learning more about deer or identifying the deer you have seen then the British Deer Society website is a great place to start.

Water Play

It looks like the sun is going to have his hat on all week and there is nothing we like better when the weather heats up than a spot of water play. Water play is calming, cooling, sensory and develops a host of skills. We have also found it doesn’t really have an age limit. Older children might enjoy our Water Filter Challenge and below we have shared a few more ideas we have used in the past to spice up water play.

Water Wall

Raid your kitchen, raid the shed, raid your recycling bin! Colanders, tubes and drain pipes can be tied to a fence to create a fun water wall. Empty plastic milk bottles can be cut in two and the half with the handle used as a jug. Holes can be added to the bottom half to allow water to trickle through. A water wall can be set up in advance for younger children. Older children can be involved from the start building, testing and redesigning the water wall.

Chalk

This is a hugely popular activity and its not hard to see why. Chalk is smashed with a hammer to create a fine powder and mixed with water to create different colours. The coloured waters can them be tipped and mixed to create new colours!

Food Colouring

Sometimes water is more appealing to play with if you can actually see it and all it takes is a few drops of food colouring!

Flowers and Herbs

Adding flowers and herbs to the mix increases the sensory element of water play and makes a for a beautiful and fragrant experience. Obviously you should choose non toxic flowers, but we like to play it super safe and use edible ones. If you don’t have a Herb Garden why not plant one?

Tea Set

Make believe garden tea parties are older than time. If you have a stainless steel tea set in the back of a cupboard now is the time to get it out. Add a few herbs for tea leaves and some flowers for cupcakes and you will have a spread suitable for even the most discerning teddy bear!

Wet Felting

Last summer the children really enjoyed wet felting in the woods. It is a wonderfully sensory activity resulting in a unique piece of fabric. Its very calming, grounding and satisfying. We made sun pictures for the Solstice and also made rainbows on rainy days.

Dragonflies will find a selection of wool, soap and a cloth in their activity packs and Sarah demonstrates how to make your own piece of Summer art in the video below. We can’t wait to see your results!

Sun Tea

This Summer Solstice we be brewing some foraged teas using the power of the sun. This is such a simple activity and the only equipment you need is a glass jug or large glass jar.

(Dragonflies - For this reason you won’t find anything in your activity packs for this, but there is a bonus packet of sunflower seeds and a couple of plant pots. Plant your sunflowers and let us know how tall they grow!)

For safety reasons it is important to use a sterilised glass container to brew your tea in. You should fill this with filtered or spring water along with your fresh ingredients. It should be left in the sun for no more than 3-4 hours and then chilled in the fridge before drinking. It should not be kept for longer than 24 hours.

This method of brewing tea originates from the Southern States of American and is usual made with black tea. The long slow brewing gives for a more subtle taste. We really like the addition of foraged ingredients though and our favourite teas are Mint and Lemon and Red Clover. Maybe you could come up with some of your own wild flavour combinations!

We packed our jug with mint from the garden and slices of lemon. This made a refreshing tea that didn’t need sweetening.

Red Clover makes a delicious iced tea and can be sweetened with a little honey.

Lighting a Fire with the Sun

Fire lighting is a central part of Forest School and we have talked about this before in our post about making Fire Tins. It is therefore natural that we experiment with different ways of starting a fire.

On long hot days it is very easy to start a fire with a magnifying glass and the heat of the sun. In fact it is very, very easy so this activity definitely requires parental supervision!

Dragonflies will find a magnifying glass and a variety of tinder (char cloth, King Alfred’s Cake, cotton wool and eucalyptus leaves and bark) in their activity pack to experiment with. We also recommend having a bucket of water to hand, working on a metal tray, tin lid or similar and weighting the tinder with a stick if there is a risk it might blow away.

If you are interested in learning more about what char cloth is and how it is made you can find out here.

At a Forest School session we would add the smoldering tinder that has been lit to a larger tinder bundle and use it to start the main fire. Families should decide if this is appropriate for them to do at home.

Below are a couple of videos from Sarah and Kev going through the process of starting a fire with the power of the sun. We hope you have as much fun as they did!

Natural Prints on Sun Paper

If you received one of our resource packs you will find a black packet with some sun paper inside. Sun paper is also available to buy online and makes for a unique summer activity.

The paper reacts with the sunlight causing it to change colour. Objects placed on the sun paper block the light and therefore leave their print.

It is important to leave the paper in the packet until you are ready to use it as it will start reacting as soon as it comes into the light.

The first stage of this activity is to gather some objects that might make good prints. Spend some time on a walk collecting natural objects with interesting shapes that appeal to you.

When you have a good collection of treasures you can lay them all out in front of you and have a good look at them. Which ones have the most interesting outline? Which one might let some light in around the edges? Which shapes do you like the best?

When you have selected a few you can open the packet containing the sun paper and lay it on the ground in the sun. Quickly arrange your objects on the paper and leave for around two minutes for the paper to react.

On a windy day you might need to put a sheet of glass on top the paper. You could take one out a picture frame.

When we do this activity in the woods we sometimes get the children to take their paper to a ‘Magic Spot’, and ask them to sit there for two minutes while the paper reacts. This time offers a window for some forest bathing or immersion in the sounds and smells of the woods. You could spend your two minutes listening to the birds perhaps.

After two minutes the paper will have changed colour and it should be placed in water for around a minute. The paper can then be dried flat and the images will start to develop and sharpen.

Sun Weaving

This weekend marks the Summer Solstice and the official start of Summer. This is the day when the sun is the highest in the sky giving us the longest day of the year.

Of course we can’t actually guarantee we will be able to see the sun and sometimes the solstice falls on a cloudy or even rainy day.

In case this happens we like to make our own sunshine! The symbolism of this is fantastic and really is at the heart of Forest School. We don’t base our well being on things we can’t control and instead change how we respond to our environment. If it is cold we light a fire, if it is wet we build a shelter and if there is no sun on the Solstice we make one!

This sun weaving is simple and effective and so calming and satisfying to make. You need three straight sticks, a pipe cleaner and a collection of appropriately coloured wool or ribbons. Dragonflies will find everything they need, apart from the sticks, in their pack when they receive it.

The sticks are crossed over each other and then secured with the pipe cleaner. Wool or ribbon can then we tied to one of the sticks and woven around. To make a nice neat sun you should wrap the wool all the way around each stick in turn. Saying that younger children might want to weave the wool and ribbons in a less uniform way and that makes a nice sun too. You can continue attaching wool or ribbons until the sticks are full and then tie off the last piece of wool.

When you are finished you can find a place to hang your sun and you will have sunshine all summer long!

Marigold Tortilla Wraps

By Mel Evans

We tend to forage for wild and native plants at Forest School. However, spending more time at home has led me to experiment with the flowers I am growing in my garden.

Marigolds are a popular bedding plant as their cheerful bright flowers are produced all summer long. They also work as a natural pesticide as they repel flying insects and soil bound Nematodes which attack crops such as tomatoes.

There are French Marigolds and larger African Marigolds, but confusingly they all originate in Mexico and South America. Here they are used to make impressive Day of the Dead (Dia de Los Muertos) decorations.

Although we found a little Marigold cooking inspiration on the internet, they don’t seem to play a major role in Mexican recipes. Possibly because the taste is not overwhelming. All Marigolds are edible, but apparently they don’t all taste good! We had a nibble on ours and they didn’t seem to taste of much!

Their colours are so striking though that we thought we would attempt to make some tortilla wraps and decorate them with the petals. These worked really well and the petals held their colour through cooking making for a cheerful picnic!

We made the dough by combining 250 g plain flour, half a teaspoon of salt, two table spoons of veg oil and 100 ml of water. The dough was kneaded for 5 mins and rested for 15 mins.

The dough was divided into 6 equal pieces,

We rolled each piece as thinly as we could.

We spritzed the tortilla with a little water before sticking on the petals.

We cooked the tortillas on both sides in a hot dry pan.

The wraps were left to cool.

Then we filled them for our picnic.

Footprint Traps

By Mel Evans and Kevin Fuller

A great way to discover what animals are in an area is to look at the footprints they leave behind. However, this can be easier at some times of the year than others. One of the magical things about a snowy day in the woods is just how easy it is to track animals. The below pictures show rabbit tracks and squirrel tracks clear enough to be identified by even the youngest of children.

Sadly we get very few snowy days and when we do some of our most interesting animals, such as hedgehogs and badgers are fast asleep. We sometimes find tracks in the mud, but often in the woods, this starts to dry out through the summer months. This is just the time the wildlife is at its most active. Below are prints in mud from a fox and a horse. These were found in March.

Making your own footprint traps in the Summer is an ideal solution to this problem. Its very easy to do, quite a fun sensory process that young children can help with and a great way to start to gather clues on what is living in an area and the routes they follow.

To make a footprint track you need to spread material that will take a print. Wet sand is ideal and can be spread over a tray. The tray is then baited with a little food such as bird seed, fruit, raw meat or cat/dog food.

This track trap picked up some lovely hedgehog prints shown in the first picture below, so we set it up for a second night and filmed it with the wildlife camera. We got some great footage of the hedgehog making the tracks in the second picture.

Kev’s also set a footprint trap and it picked up a deer print. Its not overly clear as the deer looks like it might have twisted its foot in the sand. However, combined with other clues like deer droppings in the area we can guess it was a deer that left this print. Kev also filmed deer in the area using the wildlife camera.

You might be able to make a footprint trap from other materials too. We have a lot of clay in this area so we dug some out the pond and spread it at the entrance of a hole under a tree. The trap did not pick up any footprints, but did confirm that nothing was living in the hole.

If you have a go at making your own footprint trap we recommend RSPB Animal Tracks ID Sheet for identifying your results. Do let us know what is living in your area!

Campfire Doughnuts

By Kevin (and Zach) Fuller

This is the ideal campfire recipe if you are being very active and burning lots of energy outside. These campfire doughnuts are essentially fried jam sandwiches and are absolutely delicious!

You need eggs, bread, jam, butter and oil.

Start by making some jam sandwiches and whisking the eggs.

Coat the sandwiches in the egg.

Fry the sandwich in some oil on both sides.

Carefully take the sandwich out the pan and coat in sugar.

Cut it into four squares.

Enjoy!

Hedgehog Bread

By Mel Evans

Wednesdays blog post was all about Back Garden Hedgehogs and my families new found appreciation for them after using a Wildlife Camera. I also shared some resources useful for anyone who wants to learn more about Hedgehogs and how we can help halt their sad decline.

Today we are celebrating our prickly friends with a recipe for Hedgehog Bread - Don’t worry its Vegan!

We use this Easy Bread Roll Recipe to make the dough, but shape the rolls into Hedgehogs.

This is such a fun process and involves rolling the do ugh into a Hedgehog shape, adding raisins for eyes and snipping the dough with scissors to form the prickles. The dough should be proved and cooked in the way directed on the recipe.

Back Garden Hedgehogs

By Mel Evans

I have a wildlife camera of my own here at home. It is exactly like the one we have available to loan under the wildlife camera scheme we launched this week. In a short time we have captured lots of animals that live around our cottage. The one that has stolen our hearts though are the hedgehogs.

I don’t know what it is about hedgehogs that is so fascinating and endearing. Maybe its the adorable antics they get up too. Maybe we love them because of the way they have been portrayed from Mrs Tigglewinkle to Sonic! Maybe its the fact that, although hedgehogs are not shy, we don’t often see them. Sleeping all day and hibernating all Winter means they are not the easiest of animals to observe. Maybe our appreciation of them comes from the knowledge that we could lose them.

Hedgehogs are on the endangered list and in the last ten years they have declined by 50% in rural areas and a third in urban areas. While the decline seems to be slowing in towns and cities that is not the case in the countryside. You can find more information about these worrying trends here.

Capturing our own local hedgehogs on the wildlife camera has really inspired us to understand their behavior and act sensitively towards them. We have caught a variety of hedgehog behaviours on film from nesting to playing with a raddish!

You can see some of this footage below and at the end of this post I have described some of the resources we have found useful on our hedgehog journey.

This shows a hedgehog roaming. They can travel between 1 and 3 kilometres a night.

Hedgehog gathering nesting materials. Fingers crossed that Hoglets are on the way.

We believe this hedgehog is playing with a raddish!

Hedgehog Resources

The Peoples Trust for Endangered Species and The British Hedgehog Preservation Society have joined forces to try and save our prickly friends. They are working with farmers to halt the decline in the countryside and are calling on everyone with a garden to help too.

They have created an online community called Hedgehog Street offering information and resources to make your home Hedgehog friendly. They are calling on us all to become Hedgehog Champions and spread the word in our own communities. If you are able to observe Hedgehogs you can even log their behaviors as part of their Hedgehogs After Dark project.

You can also find footage filmed by families around the country on the Hedgehog Street YouTube Channel

We loved the documentary Year of the Hedgehog and how it explained hedgehog behaviours throughout the year. Its a beautiful film with no graphic scenes so should be suitable for most children However a Hoglet is implied to be eaten by an owl and a mother Hedgehog is shown after it was hit on a road.

Make a Herb Garden

By Mel Evans

Herbs are obviously great for cooking with, but we also often use them for crafts and sensory play too. Adding fresh herbs to water play or the mud kitchen adds an extra sensory element and the herbs’ fragrances release as they are played with.

I have the fondest memories of making Mint Tea in my Granny’s garden. I would bash the leaves into cold water in a steel tea pot before pouring it into tiny cups and handing it out to everyone. Nobody ever drank it, but that wasn’t really the point!

Incorporating herbs in Hapa Zome means the scents release as you bash them and they are usually juicy enough to get good prints from even in the height of Summer.

Rumour has it that Fairies are more likely to visit Fairy Gardens decorated with herb as they are drawn in by the fragrances. You could even make your own Flower Fairy adorned with herbs.

Of course before you can do any of this you need to grow some herbs! The good news is they are simple to grow from seed or you can buy plants. At this time of year its probably better to plant fully grown plants outside as a pose to starting from seed. You can get them in a garden centre, but the easiest (and chespest) way to get started is to pick up some of those herb plants you see in the supermarket veg aisle. They will continue to grow if you repot them and the ease of planting and replacing them will mean you won’t be precious about using them to make cold mint tea that nobody drinks!

Delicate herbs such as Basil and Coriander will need to be kept on a sunny window ledge inside the house. Other herbs such as Mint, Lemon Balm, Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme can all be planted in a sunny sheltered spot outside.

We also added Nasturtiums and French Marigolds for a bit of colour and these flowers are also edible too.

Once you have sourced your herbs you need a container with drainage holes, filled with soil to plant them into. Tin baths herb gardens are popular right now, but can cost up to £50 unless you can salvage one yourself for free. Instead you could use an old bucket or washing up bowl. Whatever you use the most important thing is drainage holes! If your container dosn’’t have any you need to make some. This can be done with a drill or a screwdriver and a mallet.

After your herb garden is planted water it regularly and watch it grow. Try some herb crafts or sensory play and keep your eyes peeled for fairies!

Butterfly Feeders

By Mel Evans

One of the clear signs that Spring is turning into Summer is the Butterflies fluttering around the parks and gardens. You may have even raised your own butterflies from caterpillars and watched their life cycle unfold.

One of the families from our Dragonflies SEND Forest School sessions did just that last year. They brought the butterflies to one of the sessions and shared their release with us. It really was a magical moment.

You can attract more butterflies to your garden by planting the right kinds of flowering plants, but if this isn’t possible right now you could make a butterfly feeder.I have also used these while waiting for the plants, in a newly planted butterfly garden, to establish and bloom.

Ensuring butterflies have enough food is important as many species are in decline. Following the work of Butterfly Conservation is a great way to learn how to support our butterflies.

To make a butterfly feeder you need a clean jam jar, some string, a small piece of sponge and some way of decorating the jar. We used glass pens, but you could try acrylic paint.

Firstly you make a hole in the lid of the jam jar. We did this using a power drill and a large drill bit. You then cut a small square of sponge and pull it through the hole.

Next you use the string to make a net to hold the jam jar when you hang it. This is explained in the video below.

You can decorate the jam jar using the glass pens or acrylic paint. If you make the feeder colourful then butterflies are more likely to be attracted to it, just as they are with flowers.

Finally you can fill the butterfly feeder and hang it in a sunny spot. You can fill it with sugar water or honey water made with approximately 1 part sugar/honey and 8 parts water. You can also fill the feeder with fruit juice.

If you enjoy watching the butterflies that come to your feeder you could take part in The Big Butterfly Count starting on the 17th of July.

Wild 'Noughts and Crosses'

By Mel Evans

I was slightly horrified to discover my children had very little knowledge of the game ‘Noughts and Crosses’, so we decided to make our own version to play in the garden. At first I wondered how this little game might be able to compete with the X Box, so I was delighted (and surprised!) when they played many games of ‘Noughts and Crosses’ over the weekend.

You could have a game in the garden, on the beach or in the woods simply by making a grid from sticks and finding four things the same each to use as the ‘Noughts and Crosses’.

We played in the garden using Clematis Flowers and Ivy Leaves.

I wanted our set to be a little more permanent though so I could leave it in a basket in the garden as a prompt for us to have a game. I painted slices of wood with chalk paint and drew the ‘Noughts and Crosses’ on with chalk pens. Another idea is to paint pebbles.

We made a more permanent set from wood.

How ever you do it, a game of ‘Noughts and Crosses’ is really good, old fashioned family fun! Sometimes the simply ideas are the best!

Pine Cone Bumblebees

By Mel Evans

We love a pine cone and we love a Bumblebee so you can imagine just how happy a Pine Cone Bumblebee makes us. We have talked about these previously on our Easter Tree post, but as its World Bee Day it seems only fitting that they should get a post all of their own!

The whole point of World Bee Day is to raise awareness of these important creatures and what we can do to help their survival. Loss of habitat and a reduction in wild flowers are taking their toll, but we can help by creating homes for bees and planting their favourite plants. The Bumblebee Conservation Trust has lots of information and advice.

We like to make Pine Cone Bumblebees alongside other activities as a way to raise awareness. We often combine this activity with making (or eating) our ever popular Dandelion Jam as a reminder that we have to share the Dandelions (and other flowers) with the bees.

More than this though, making Pine Cone Bumblebees are great for little fingers with developing fine motor skills, as well as relaxing and grounding for older children. They are fun to tie to a stick and buzz around the woods or look great hanging from a vase of flowers or decorating the garden.

Now is a great time to collect Pine Cones as they are likely to be fully open in the warm weather. Appropriately coloiured wool can be wound around the pine cone to make the bee’s stripes. Wings can then be cut from old packing materials or washed out plastic milk bottles. The wings are then tied onto the body using the hanging string.

Below are some Bee facts taken from one of our favourite books.

Bee Facts

Bees buzz by moving their wings very quickly, up to 200 times a second!

It takes 20,000 bees to make one jar of honey.

Bees communicate through dancing and making smells.

Many bees are dying out because of changes in our towns and countryside, It is getting harder for bees to find flowers.

We can help bees by giving them a place to live and planting more flowers for their food.

Bees can live happily in towns and cities if there are enough flowers around.

Bees have been around since dinosaurs walked the earth.