The day started bright and early; luckily the weather was in our favour as we loaded the minibus with all the equipment for the day.
Activities for the day started as son as we got there through unloading the minibus, getting our boxes and finding which fire our activities were based at. Myself and Beth were leading the activity on making charcoal - Beth was absent this day but I had help from some of the others who were free for that time slot.
Before activities started I headed over the to car-park with some of the others to meet the children as they departed their coach. The children were all given name stickers to help us when we were leading the activities, then sorted into their groups for the day. Myself and the rest of the 'greeting group' split up so there were a few of us with each group as we headed to the start of the trail where Lauren and Harriet started the days tasks with some decoding.
When the fire safety talk had been given by Duncan - including where to walk and how to kneel while next to the fire. It was time for myself and others to continue with the activities of the day. So we took two of the groups up to another fire circle so we could make some charcoal.
At the beginning of the activity, the children were really enthusiastic and excited about what they would be doing and about where they have seen charcoal be used before. All of the children enjoyed stripping the bark off their pieces of wood; getting ready to turn it into some charcoal they could take away with them.
Once all the stick had been put in the tin and onto the fire, the children had to write down words about the fire and their surroundings. A lot of the children drew pictures to help them with this activity. After a while they started to get bored, which wasn't good - when we planned the lesson we hoped that the charcoal would have been done and so there wouldn't have been time for them to get bored.
To improve this activity in the future I would plan a game or something for the children to play once they had finished with the words and pictures so that they wouldn't be as bored. Apart from that one point, I feel that the activity was successful and the children enjoyed stripping their sticks and drawing the pictures.
At lunchtime I also went with Lauren C to collect any children who wanted to make cakes with Jess or popcorn with Zoe.
I think the whole day was a great success and really showed me how much children can learn even outside of the classroom, and how much they like to get stuck in with activities - especially if it includes getting their faces covered in charcoal and giving me a charcoal beard!
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