Gardening Club #01
After school gardening club at the allotment started today and what a great success it was. The allotment has been months in the planning and so it was extremely pleasing to see the children enjoying themselves, working together and generally being so happy outside in the beautiful Cotswold countryside.
The activity for today’s session was making bird hides out of old Christmas trees in readiness for the RSPB’s Big School Bird Watch the children are doing in February. The hides are an A-frame constructed from the stalks of seven trees. The foliage is then used to cover the frame and camouflage it. It’s a great lesson in reusing and recycling.
There were nine children at today’s session and with fourteen trees to strip in just under an hour, they had their work cut out. Unbelievably, they got through eleven trees - a remarkable achievement!
Everyone got particularly excited when a bird’s nest was found hiding among the branches of one of the trees. No one had ever seen anything quite like it. Just a few weeks ago all these trees had been stood in people’s houses looking beautifully decorated for Christmas. Why no one had spotted it sooner was mind boggling. Still, the children had fun guessing which kind of bird might have made the nest.
Everyone worked incredibly hard to strip the branches off the trunks, even our youngest members gave it a good go, assisted by the older ones.
The children found their own methods for stripping the trees. Some attacked the branches with such vigour one felt they would wear themselves out within the first five minutes, while others adopted a more methodical approach. Ultimately, both methods had the same outcome!
The children were extremely proud of their efforts and quite rightly so. The branches, particularly around the lower section of the trees, were quite thick and it took a great deal of strength to cut through them. The foliage was also rather spiky and didn’t relinquish easily.
The children all showed great determination and drive, there was much jubilation every time another branch was dismembered from the trunk!
With tired hands and arms, the children teamed up and made light work of the final few trees. A thorough health and safety check had been done at the beginning of the session, drawing the children’s attention to the possible dangers involved in the activity and to the tools they were using. It was nice to see them all being sensible and looking out for one another.
All of the gardening club sessions will have two adults, which equates to one adult per six children. It was pleasing to see that the club was nearly at maximum capacity, even on a cold and rather damp Winter’s day.
The stalks were piled up and will be pulled into A-frames at next week’s gardening club. Viewing slots will be created using canes and netting will be stretched over. The foliage will then be pushed through the netting and held in place by its own weight.
Thankfully the children showed much more excitement and enthusiasm than pooch here!
Gardening club finished at 4.30pm and by the time everyone had packed everything away we were treated to the most stunning sunset. The children were mesmerised. There was no better place to be other than standing on the allotment watching the sunset for those few minutes. An incredibly enriching and rewarding session for all those involved.