We need to start with a big Forest School "thank you" to Mr Carter, a Paddox parent who works as a tree surgeon with A.C. Old Tree Care Specialists. His special delivery of birch branches gave 1M a chance to work as a team to carry and stack the material on site, explore the parts of a tree and link vocaulary to their own body language, and to trial our new secateurs. 

As well as getting first-hand experience of thick and thin, along with maths terms like parallel and diameter, children used their pruning skills to create the equipment for a quick game of The Longest Straw, comparing lengths to find the winner. 

Does that birch branch stack remind anyone of the snake's logpile house in The Gruffalo?