RSPB: The Great Woolly Worm Hunt

As the RSPB Big School Bird-watch comes to an end, we finished our Forest school sessions with the Great Woolly Worm Hunt. This is a fantastic challenge that helps the children to understand how birds feed.  In reflection we talk about how time consuming it can be and how tired the birds might get when they have a nest full of chicks to feed. We discuss which colour worms were the easiest to find and therefore how and why insects and plants may use colour to either camouflage themselves or to say “eat me”.

• In pairs set up your nest somewhere in the middle of the field. (Early years work together to make one big nest with lots of chicks in it).
• Choose a stick to represent your chick, this goes into your nest
• You and your partner are a pair of birds.
• You can take turns in this activity but one bird must protect the nest at all times. Watch out for birds of prey who might swoop in and steal from an unprotected nest.
• The other bird flies off to collect “woolly worms” and bring them back to your nest.
• Each “woolly worm” should then be tied onto the stick.
• Just like the birds you can only get one worm at a time
• Repeat until the whistle blows.

The Nature Principle: Forest School takes place in a woodland or natural wooded environment to support the development of a relationship between the learner and the natural world

Article 24: We all have the right to healthy food.