Year 5 spent a lovely afternoon planning and creating their own river beds. They had a variety of materials to choose from: rock, wood, soil, clay, sand, and any other natural materials that they could find in our Forest School. By using any combination of these resources they were tasked with making a river bed and banks that channeled the water. This meant lively discussion regarding the properties of materials; density, weight and water resistance for example. How could they use materials to change the water direction and the flow rate.
This exercise not only challenges their knowledge of how water erosion affects our landscape but also how the children manage themselves in a team. The plan must be clear and each team member should understand their role to maximise success.
At the end of the session we tested out their designs.
-
- The planning stage.
-
- These children used stones to break up the flow rate of the water.
-
- Some designs had a clear meander.
-
- The combination of clay stones and soil proved to be very successful.
