Forest School Training - Galway, July 2015

There a still a few places left on the Forest School training course in Galway, well worth doing if you're interested in getting kids out into nature again and if you're inner kid is dying to go an play in the woods!

Forest School Leadership Training Galway website

Forest School Leadership Training - Galway - facebook page.

Garden from scratch with the Kilcock Men's Shed

Final session at the Kilcock Men's Shed today...I think the lads have done an amazing job - here are a few snapshots of the project and a before and after shot, it's quite a transformation!

The Art of Sneaking at the Festival of Outdoor Learning

Teaching a little foraging, sensory awareness, animal names, sneaking and fox walking at my Forest Schools workshop as part of The Festival of Outdoor Learning at Kippure Estate at the weekend, great weekend, so many amazing people working in the outdoors with young people!

It's all about the willow!

It's all about the willow this week - a gorgeous willow dome built by the 6th class of Rathfarnham Educate Together NS on Monday, willow fence at Ashgrove Community Garden on Tuesday and Willow archway at Kilcock Men's shed today!

Allotments showing signs of being good bee habitats!

There has been a bee study done in the UK by Friends of the Earth which has had some pretty interesting findings regarding the best habitats for the stuggling bee populations both bumble and honeybee - with Allotments coming out on top! Have a read.

 http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/15/scientists-fit-honey-bees-with-tiny-sensors-to-study-decline-of-colonies

SEAI CPD Training-Exploring our Energy

Training up to train teachers in energy science education for primary schools! Kids are gonna love this!  

The programme explores the current science curriculuum in a pracitcal way, using all of the new spiral learning approaches and incoroporating activities such as design and make and a load of fair test science experiements, you'll never look at an egg or a chocolate button in the same way again.

Areas such as temperature, conduction, convection, radiation, types of energy are all explored. I think my favourite is making the land buggy!

Check out the programme here: http://www.seai.ie/Schools/Primary_Schools/Exploring_Our_Energy_Primary_Programme/

Kerry Earth Education Project & Gortbrack Organic farm - where I started!

Rocking the good life down at Gortbrack...my old Alma mater! Good on ye lads! Magical place! Check out this video about the farm here.

Irish Times Article on Forest Schools

An article written by a journalist who came out to see us on our Forest School Training...interesting stuff!

Irish Times Article by Sheila Wayman - Why children need to go into the woods today.

An extract from Sheila Wayman's article on our Forest Schools Training Course:

'There are whoops of delight as seven grown adults pile into the “debris shelter” they have built from scratch in russet woodland in Co Wicklow. In the distance, the first snow of winter is sprinkled like icing sugar onto Lugnaquilla, lit by the low-angle sun in the clear blue, winter sky.

They were given 45 minutes to complete the task, starting with the picking of a suitable tree with a “V” on which to prop a sturdy “spine” that would, in turn, support a “rib cage” of branches. Armfuls of brush were gathered to fill in the gaps and then covered with forest floor mulch to waterproof the structure.

Mission accomplished, group members stand around and admire their handiwork. Okay, they are not going to have to sleep in it tonight but that doesn’t stop them clambering in to get a feel of it – the leaf-covered, earthy base and the scratchy, twig walls of the dim interior.

It’s the stuff of childhood – at least it should be. But within the space of one generation, a gulf has opened between children and nature as their freedom to roam and play outdoors has been drastically curtailed.

Instead they turn to television and the internet for entertainment while, in the words of Last Child in the Woods author Richard Louv, they are kept under “well-meaning, protective house arrest”.

By depriving children of the chance to negotiate outdoor challenges independently, we’re in danger of raising a generation of physically inept, risk-averse softies, with no wish to get their hands dirty.' 

by Sheila Wayman.

Forest Schools Training Course...in progress.

Serious concentration a happening during the first ever Forest Schools Training that happened in Wicklow last week, basically we got to play in the woods for the week!!!!

The week involved our immersion onto what Forest Schools can and should be, so we mixed it up between playing in the woods - fire making, natural art, mud art, campfire cooking and then sound child developmental theory and educational theory which to me was fascinating! there was a whole 6th sense that I never knew about before...

New VEC Community Garden Project - IWA Clane

Forest Schools Training - first time in Ireland!

Starting 2moro....the first ever Forest Schools Training in Ireland..imagine the woods being a full time school!!!

http://www.earthforceeducation.com/courses/forest-school-level-three-training-co-wicklow-ireland/

First ever School Garden Conference to be held!

The First Conference on Organic School Gardens - TEACHING IS EASY IN A SCHOOL GARDEN, was held in Marino College, this weekend gone by, SAT 5th Oct 2013. It was a fantastidcally succesful day, organised bt SEED, our first ever national school gardens network (www.schoolearthed.ie) Fantasitc and memorable day-great to see school gardening getting the attention it deserves! With Trevor Sergeant giving our opening address and old stalwarts of the school garden world such as Paddy Madden and Ian McGrigor in tow. There were workshops and talks throughtout the day, and more to come in the near future we hope! 

Aine from www.irishseedsavers.ie giving a talk on seed saving at the SEED school garden conference at the weekend in Marino College(picture right).


http://www.schoolearthed.ie/conference.html

Weaving willow in the woods...

Willow lanterns made with kids on our summer camp in Huntingbrook gardens, this August 2013, with Earthforce Education and Ciara Hinksman, check out www.earthforceeducation.com 

Summer Camp with a twist...

Wildcraft summer Camp.

Your kids will finish this weel with a new curiosity about nature and have creative tools to go outdoors and make fun for themselves!
at Hunting Brook Gardens, nr. Blessington

Age: There are three age groups: Teens 13-15 yrs, 9-12 yrs, and 6-8 yrs.

Cost: Five days €120, three days €80, or per day €30 When: 10am–3pm daily, Mon 19^th – Fri 23^rd Aug

Wildcraft * Storytelling * Camouflage * Wildlife Tracking * Wild-Plant Identification * Games 

* Plant Food and Medicine * Folklore * Ethical Foraging & Eating * Indigenous tools * Camp-Craft

Travel: Drive via N81 or take No. 65 Bus, bus stops just a few minutes walk uphill to the gardens.

To Book: www.earthforceeducation.com or call Ciara 086 3199 515, or Lucy 087 650 8226

Woodland Education-getting our kids out playing in the woods!

Check out my friend Ciara's great coverage on Nationwide this week...
getting the kids out into the woods!

http://vimeo.com/65611610

Tree Nursery Project at Donadea Forest, October 2012

In the autumn of 2012 we carried out our LA21 funded project - Native Tree Nursery Project at Donadea Forest in North Kildare. We worked with three local primary schools, three different classes, 2nd class from Scoil Naomh Mhuire, 4th class from Rathcoffey NS and 6th class from Tir Moghan NS.

The schools came to Donadea for a full immersion in the woods, we gathered tree seeds from the sweet chestnut, maple, beech, sycamore, Hawthorne berries and rosehips from the wild rose, horse chestnut and a small amount of ash keys, there were no oak to be found this year, and we were too late for hazel.

We also played various sensory games to raise the childrens' awareness of their surroundings, we did bug hunts and pond dips, and had wonderful days all in all in the woods.



We followed this up with a trip to the schools to build and set up a tree nursery in the school itself. With the class we built a small raised bed, filled it with soil and leaf mould, and then put in our gathered tree seeds, in separate sections so we can identify the baby trees as they grow, this was topped with leaves to replicate the forest floor, a system called the Dunemann System.

To finish we made a wire mesh lid to keep the vermin at bay, mice especially love to eat tree seeds. And tree nursery beds done. The class have to keep an eye on the beds, water it in especially droughty periods and take the lid off in spring when the trees hopefully start to grow!

ONE MILLION TREES IN ONE DAY at The Acre Project

Earlier this year I put in an application to the ONE MILLION TREES IN ONE DAY Project for the ACRE Project in Celbridge. We were successful in the application! So, on Friday 26th April we will be planting over 1,000 native trees and hedgerow plants at the ACRE Project in Celbridge! If you're interested in getting involved just let me know, we'll have students from the Salesians, the TY's and LCA's and my adult  FETAC class involved on the day. Really excited to be involved and leading the planting project! Check out more about this really exciting project at: http://www.onemilliontreesinoneday.com/

From the Ground Up...representing Holy Trinity School Garden

Fionnuala Fallon, horticulturalist and Irish Times journalist has published a book, 'From the Ground Up' that tells the stories of some very talented and very different `ticklers of the earth', all of whom live and garden in Ireland today. From schoolchildren to retirees, amateurs to experts, what they share in common is a delight in growing their own fruit and vegetables.

Most notable for me, she visited our amazing organic school garden in Holy Trinity National School in Donaghmede in North County Dublin over three years ago now, I had completely forgotten about it until I saw myself in print and in photos in the book at Christmas. It's a really good read, and really promotes the positive aspects of developing gardens in schools! To read more about rthe book see below.

http://www.collinspress.ie/from-the-ground-up.html

Heritage in Schools Scheme is Open for Bookings!

Heritage in Schools Scheme is Open for Bookings!
The wonderful panel of 165 Heritage Experts are all ready to bring heritage to life in the classroom for your pupils!

Find out more at...

http://www.heritageinschools.ie/

Let's get those gardens growing! You can find GROW on the website above..book us in if you want to get your school garden a growing!

Dublin Zoo - Teacher Training and Summer Camp Madness, Summer 2012

I was invited in to work with Dublin Zoo this summer on their teacher training course and on their summer camps. They have a purpose built school garden now in the zoo with a vegetable patch, fruit area, composter and pond for dipping in, as well as a purpose built classroom and a kind of urban farm next door complete with cows, sheep, goats and pigs.
I spent 2 days teaching primary teachers about how to set up their own organic school garden, I covered garden design elements and how to re-design your school grounds, seeding seeds, planting potatoes and science in the garden experiments.
The summer camps were run over 5 weeks during the summer, I was only doing one day a week on them, and fair play to the rest of the staff in the zoo for doing them full time during that time, don't know if I would have had the energy! I did some veg tasting, seed in a pot, mini-gardens,pond dipping and bug hunting in the school garden, it was a busy day in the zoo.