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St Dominique's English Trip - Poetry in Motion!

22/4/2019

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On 16th April we welcomed 24 students from St. Dominique school, who came to the Hazelhut to learn more about poetry.

One of the activities was to search for adjectives in the woods as part of an inspiration journey.

Then the students used the words to make up their own poems, inspired by the surroundings at the Hazelhut.

Later they wrote the poems on stones and took them back to school.

It was really sad to say goodbye to such a bright, fun-loving group of kids - we hope to see you all again one day!

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Surviving Sunday

15/4/2019

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We are happy to report that 50 fingers and thumbs arrived on Saturday and 50 fingers and thumbs went home on Sunday! Once again the weather was not great, so we got out when we could and did some activities indoors too.

First of all we finished the shooting activity from Saturday and discovered that with these troopers, no one's going hungry!

Next we looked at wild foods and foraged for some leaves and herbs to make a warming cup of tea.

Next James instructed the children on how to make some cooking devices from bamboo - these included chopsticks for a hygienic piece of cutlery and then skewers to use as roasting tools.

Sadly the rain arrived again and prevented us from foraging for soup ingredients as planned or from using the new tools we had made. So we had lunch indoors instead - some rather tasty hotdogs! After lunch the children took part in a food survival competition where they had to choose the 10 best foods to take into the wild - after a lot of consideration, we found our winner.

The weather had cleared up so we went back to the campfire, which was still glowing thanks to the banking system James had taught the children, and learned about tying a range of knots.

After a couple of successful ones there were also a few fails.... It turns out tying and teaching knot tying is not as easy as we hoped! the weather clearly sensed our frustration and soon enough another storm rolled in, sending us back to the house.

We used a range of ingredients you might just find in the wild to make a round of high energy cookies - they weren't the most exciting to eat, but they would keep you going in a survival situation!

For us the best thing about the weekend was the company and we had a lot of fun with these intelligent, comical and positive kids - maybe in a true survival situation that's all you really need!

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Surviving whatever the weather

13/4/2019

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A cracking group of 5 has joined us this weekend for a survival adventure. Despite a miserable forecast these kids were up for everything. They started by pitching tents.

Then each child was issued with a knife to take home and taught how to use it safely to split bamboo and later to whittle tent pegs and basic cutlery.

They also learned about the solar heated shower, which would become our hand-washer for the weekend.

The children were really good at following instructions and at working together.

It was no surprise that everyone was hungry by lunchtime.....

...including the cats!

After lunch it was time to learn about using a gun(!)

We were impressed by how careful the children were and how good their aim was, considering the distance and the size of the target.

Not everyone was comfortable around the firearms, luckily for Mr. Jones! Finally the skies opened and we were hit by a huge downpour.

Indoors the bushcraft continued with peg and tool whittling.

Later in the evening everyone enjoyed a bit of free time, some played cards, others made use of the art materials.

What a super day it has been! We hope that the weather gods will be kind to us tomorrow and let us continue the fun.

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St Dominique's English Trip - Poetry in Motion!

Surviving Sunday

Surviving whatever the weather

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