This was by far my favourite junior rangers activity! Yes, Yes I know all of these sessions have been aimed at kids!
The only down side was the munchkin, now confident in her nature arts and crafts, didn’t want any help at all, no matter how much I tried!
Two lovely ladies from the forest schools ran the session, which took place in the designated area in the woods.
There were 2 craft activities we were going to do. The first was to make jewelry out of Elder wood, which was surprisingly easy. First you had to grate or peel off the outer layer of bark, so she didn’t chop her fingers off I then had the job of cutting the wood into smaller pieces so they looked like beads. Then we had to poke out the inside so we could thread through some elastic to make a piece of jewelry.
The munchkin decided to make a headband and I think she looked fantastic!
The next activity was using our surroundings to make natural dyes. We collected different shaped leaves, flowers and berries from the wood and meadow. We then placed them on a white sheet, folded it in half and gently hammered the fabric so the berries and the leaves stained the material. At first we tried to spell out the munchkins name but some of our berries just made a mess. The munchkin loved the hammering so decided to do another print using just leaves.
People were making bandannas and scarves with their prints, the munchkin decided to make flags!
To finish off the session we had a campfire and toasted either marshmallows, or marshymallows if you’re my little girl, or chocolate Brioche, which the munchkin loved! Once all the kids were sorted they even let the adults have a go, at last!
We really enjoyed the afternoon it was a brilliant end to our junior rangers sessions.
