Still in winter and enjoying the benefits of fire we focused on fire-starting and saw the bow drill in action from Max.

We started thinking about birds in March, playing games like Pass The Grub, another creation from the games team, to feed hungry baby birds and learn the 5 voices of birds. Kim Nisbet, a local artist joined us to make magical birds from nature and a giant nest that was really fun! Our visit to Birnie Loch to survey the birds was made all the more magical by the swans.

We kept warm on the cooler Spring days with lots of building – in free play the quarry site got bigger and better, we opened up a natural spa, …

… and at camp we built a willow fence and a storytelling shelter. But …

… first we learnt how to lash poles together.

When the weather felt like it had shifted we enjoyed venturing out to explore new places.

Pitmedden is a favourite – for the diversity, good climbing trees and the resident pigs that drew them all away!

We travelled to the Tower one day as Bees, imagining where they might find food and water. Bees wouldn’t travel along paths so neither did we! We saw a lot of yellow flowers.

Our walk up Falkland Hill was a highlight from the term, we got an amazing view and had a lot of fun spotting where we lived and where we had been at HG this year. It was a great day for the group taking on and sharing some of the nature connection attributes we work with – awe and reverence was felt a lot!

Closer to home we explored the woods near camp and delved into our field guides to learn about our neighbours.

Also pretty close to home we ventured up to Drumdreel to enjoy the different vegetation for games we were still trialling. We had no idea that close by, very close by, someone was playing a real life version of one of favourite games, Sleeping Fawn!

We welcomed back the foraging season, diving into the amazing world of plants with a new game we created in the team – Plant Trumps

We spent the day at Letham Woods after harvesting wild garlic in Monimail – the garlic pesto pasta was very popular. Our abundant wood sorrel at our camp was turned into sorrelade for the hot days to come.

Learning to pick nettles without being stung was challenging for some and we realised that making nettle crisps is also challenging, but they are very tasty. How does the cooking change them so much?

All active foragers and cooks need a spoon so we made one of them each too!

We had parents visits in June so they could sample our favourite foraged dishes – comfrey fritters and nettle pancakes. Oh, and they enjoyed hearing our golden moments from the year and seeing our camp. I think they enjoyed the family sit spot the most!

We finished our year by gathering as one large group – the weekly group and the fortnightly group – and spent the day on the beach near Ravenscraig Park. It was fun for the groups to see that the other group also knew some of the same games and activities.

We played the Ant Colonies game using delicious fruit to make a fruit salad. The worker ants worked extra hard to get as much as they could for their team.