Our Trip
We visited Curraghchase Forest Park today as part of the LEAF programme. LEAF stands for Learning Everything About Forests. We were divided into two groups and worked with our two LEAF coordinators Rachel and Ray. We had lots of fun and we learnt a lot about trees and Curraghchase. We visited the old house where Ray told us about the 13,000 bats who live there. We walked around the arboretum and saw trees from all over the world. We visited a ruined cottage and then Ray helped us to make a necklace using string and a piece of hazel wood. Rachel showed us the swans and ducks that live in the pond. We also learnt how to see how old a living tree is. We helped measure a tree and we found out it was 32 years old. We looked for signs of autumn and explored the colours of autumn. We made faces and flower pictures out of the things we found. We used our senses in the forest. We listened to the sounds of the forest and used magnifying glasses to look at things up close. We had a lovely picnic in the forest and after lunch we had some time in the playground. We had a great day and we learnt a lot. We look forward to working with LEAF in the New Year when we will have a school based workshop. Thank you to Rachel and Ray for all their work today and for the lovely surprise of hot chocolate at lunchtime!