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Coronation hapa-zome

26th April 2023

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Firs class were eager to get out to Forest School this week, and had a super time exploring and adventuring!
They started off their morning looking at pictures of the King, a crown, and other pictures related to the Coronation. Then set about making their own forest style nature crowns…
Both Cedars and Larches classes listened to a story, with an introduction from King Charles. They also watched him telling us about the book on YouTube. 
They learnt how important it is to look after our world and how we all need to work together to make it a better place for all of the creatures, forests, oceans and people. 
The book was called “It’s up to us”… and we used it as a starting point to decide what we were going to do to help the nature all around us at Langley school. 
 https://youtu.be/bSdKiF9VWCs
 
You can view the story and forward by King Charles by copying  the YouTube link 
Cedars children worked hard to help nature, by creating a rotting wood pile. We talked about all the creatures who lived in and on rotting wood, and how useful they were in helping to break down the wood and make the soil rich and fertile..which in turn helps the trees and plants to thrive. They worked brilliantly as a team hunting for and carefully lifting up rotting logs and placing them together in a pile. They then added a sign so that everyone who uses forest school will know to leave this pile alone and not disturb it. 
Larches children worked really hard, planting some tiny trees. We discussed what the trees needed and then found a good position, where the trees would get sunlight and rain to help them to grow. It was hard work digging a hole because there were so many roots in the ground, but everyone persevered and worked together to plant the three trees around the Forest School site. 
As well as all our other tasks, we also worked together today to produce a beautiful coronation emblem based on the actual emblem for King Charles’ Coronation.
The emblem is made up of lots of different plants and leaves so we decided to make our own forest school version, using the process of hapa-zome. Hapa-zome is the Japanese art of bashing leaves and flowers, to release their natural colours into cloth. 

We hammered lots of different types of leaves, petals and flowers until we were happy with the patterns we had made…
We had lots of fun too, learning about the creatures that live amongst us. We hunted for mini beasts and identified what we had found, we did some birdwatching, had a marvellous time hunting for worms in the digging pit, as well as planting sunflower seeds and raking the leaves!