Category: Blog

By Sally Hall

Every day I spend at Dacres Wood I learn something new. Last week it was how to identify animal tracks left in the snow and what moorhens like to eat. The week before that it was wood carving and bricklaying. The past week or so however, for me, has been a lesson in how to hold different kinds of spaces at Dacres Wood. Spaces for quietly concentrating, dreaming and making; as well as spaces for group play, discussion and laughter. Continue reading “‘Sitting Down’ v ‘The Upside-Down Jungle’”

By Sally Hall

Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything – Plato.

One afternoon a few weeks ago at Dacres Wood, as I wandered up the steps from the pond to the meadow, my ears picked out a sweet sound amongst the birds, the blowing of the trees and the giggling of children. As I climbed the steps and turned the corner towards our ‘climbing tree’, the sound grew nearer. This was the tuneful strumming of a ukulele and the rhythmic rapping of a tune. Sat upon a log, bathing in the sunshine, T, L and E had formed a band called The Colourgrams and were practising their first song! Continue reading “Strewing Music”

By Rowan Salim

I was watching a Ted Talk the other week called ‘Nature is everywhere, we just have to learn to see it’, by Emma Marris, an environmental writer who writes for National Geographic. In her talk she makes the point that we have stolen ‘nature’ from our children. And by that she doesn’t mean that we’ve stolen nature itself, but that we’ve stolen the definition of nature, the word itself. Continue reading “Rambunctious nature rambunctious children”

A parent’s reflection on our first day trip

The moment I heard the group had voted to go visit Pinewood on a day the   wonderful Forest Families community meets I felt very excited and moved. For those who don’t know much about Forest Families, it is a learning community of adults and children who meet every Thursday in a beautiful little woodland in Croydon. Our family has been incredibly lucky to be part of this group since it started and we feel a very strong connection to the people and the space. Continue reading “From Dacres Wood to Pinewood”

By Sally Hall

One vivid image strikes me most when I think back over our first few weeks at Dacres Wood: the troop of children joyfully bouncing and zipping around the woods, along the bridge, to the courtyard like a deer herd, bellowing and screeching as they go.

Continue reading “The Deer Herd”