Week 2
The children started the session raising their heart rate pulling the woodcamp taxi. This week, instead of pulling one child they pulled two and three children at a time! Their ability to work as part of a team is amazing. Mr Oakey then explained to the children that he had hidden seven animals around the school. They were placed in wooden boxes and screwed shut (no animals were injured in this lesson). The children had to prove their understanding on map reading, find the coordinates for their hidden animal and then locate and retrieve their new friend. The teachers let the children find the animals independently, so you can imagine the adventure they had. Once found, they used screwdrivers to open the boxes and release the beasts! They discovered that each animal was named after a continent. This allowed a little Geography link to chat about continents and why Antarctica is an unusual continent.
Although, the animals looked extremely strange, they were instantly cared for by the children. When they were asked to build shelters and equipment for the animals, the children instantly set to work building with a purpose and they created incredible, unique products.
Whilst this was going on, Mr Oakey demonstrated the safe use of the Japanese saw, vices and the electric drill. The children made high risk low risk by following the instructions carefully. They were independent and you could see their confidence and self belief growing every step of the way. Many resulted in producing necklaces after sawing a disk of wood and drilling a hole through the centre.
Mr Oakey was once again blown away by the effort the children put into their learning. They really seem to have a passion to learn and it's brilliant to see how committed the staff are in the children's sessions.
Roll on next Tuesday!
