The Millennium Green is a great place to share with family and friends
The Millennium Green is a great place to share with family and friends of all ages but I’ve been particularly amazed how the children of Orston Primary Forest School have incorporated themselves into their wild surroundings.
6 and 7 year olds have an amazing imagination and you give them a doll or a car and its incredible the scenarios they can come up with. However if they are presented with a stick, well, the potential is limitless. Yes, I have seen gun and sword battles on a weekly basis but I have also seen sticks transformed into a scanner at the local ‘hospital’; for securing the tarp roof of a makeshift shelter; and a tool for mining diamonds beneath the bark of a rotten log.
Den building was another area that I felt I knew all about – however, the structures – of different levels of sophistication – are truly inspiring. There is the aforementioned hospital; a café; a ninja combat base with it’s own time machine made from two hawthorn branches; and the Hollywood school from the Nativity films!
Getting out into the wild opens up, not only possibilities, but our field of vision. Too much of our time is spent indoors looking into a screen – a common complaint I hear from other parents and grandparents. We start to develop a narrow perspective on the world. Spend some time outside and the eyesight becomes keener and we spot things that would normally go unnoticed – from the fleeting glimpse of a passing bird to the miniature world of the ant.
Earlier in the month I was invited to join the 1st Bottesford Beavers to help them with their Environment badge – we had a great evening finding mini-beasts and collecting and identifying all the different leaves from the trees on the site – we finished the session off with a game of sticky wicket.
All of these activities are free and are totally lead by the children – just take them down to The Millennium Green, stand back and see what magical world you are transported to!
1st Bottesford Beavers would like to say thank you to Steve Grace from the MGT for spending a drizzly evening with them teaching them about the flora and fauna on the green.