Quest in Fire Wood (PART ONE) - Vicky

Quest in Fire Wood (March 19^th 2012) – Vicky Mitchell

Wow what an amazing day! I think the adults had just as much fun facilitating the activities as did the children participating.

The day started for the BA Pet students at 8.45am in Seely Copse, Goodwood, as we had lots to prepare in anticipation of the arrival at 10am of Red class; a year 2 class from St Mary’s Catholic Primary School, in Bognor Regis.

The ‘Reeve’ (aka Duncan, our module lecturer) set a magical scene for the arrival the children, appearing from within the depths of the forest, dressed in a medieval cape and delivering a mesmerising dialogue announcing their quest, which was full of surprises and challenges. 

For the children’s first task they had to decode the ‘language of the forest.’ Once they had cracked the code, it would lead them along the path to reach the fire circles. Harriet and Lauren devised this first challenge. They carved symbols into logs, creating a cipher system where every letter of the message was replaced by a symbol. Four carved messages were placed along the path, directing the children forward each time they successfully translated the content.

Once all the groups of children were assembled at the main fire circle the ‘Reeve’ explained the fire safety precautions and rules.  

The class was split for the next challenge. Half went to the top fire circle and made their very own pieces of charcoal. They carefully stripped the bark off pieces of Maple, using knives, and then placed into a metal container (such as a sweet or biscuit tin) which had no air supply and just one hole in the top to release the smoke. The container was then placed into the fire for about an hour.

Meanwhile at the main fire, I had the pleasure of taking part in ‘using the fire – making natural dyes.’ The activity was delivered so enthusiastically by Lauren. C, Helen and Gillian who dressed as three witches called, Hilda, Matilda and Esmeralda. The witches explained they needed the children’s help to make a magic potion which could change the colour of the plain wool. The children used pestles and mortars to finely crush ‘oak galls’ and blackberries. Four saucepans were put on the fire and each one had a different substance added, oak gall, blackberries, and Ewe bark and onion skins. The children were asked to predict what colour they thought each substance would dye the wool. There were some very interesting colour predictions from beige to black! I won’t say too much more about this activity so if you want to know what colours these substances created then check out Gillian’s posts on the blog. What I will say, however, is that the children were genuinely astonished to see the vibrant colours produced from these substances.