Making Magic Potions!

In the summer I was lucky to attend #niedcampin Belfast and whilst there I heard the word 'free' mentioned by one of the exhibitors & rushed over to see what they were talking about - all educators love to here about free resources! OPAL (http://www.opalexplorenature.org/northern-ireland) were offering sessions to schools to help promote environmental awareness. I go their details and actually emailed that same day to chat about them coming up to work with my nursery class, most sessions are free but the magic potions one I wanted to use first entailed some travel expenses for the trainers. But I thought this was a small price to pay for a fun activity & I was right!

After the fire was all over & cooled - the children 'cooked' their own marshmallows!!

Patricia & Rachel arrived on one of our 'Outdoor Days' - when we spend the morning outdoors & light the fire. By the time they arrived we had already had some hot chocolate with mini marshmallows & it was a bright, dry crisp Autumn morning. Patricia explained they were going to use all their senses to make some magic potions - we all walked up the little hill towards Bear Woods & the children then had to gather up 5 different ingredients to fill up a bucket. They had to find something green, yellow, smelly, bumpy & crunchy - the parsley was very popular as a smelly thing!

Once the bucket was full we all walked back to nursery & the children watched as Patricia explained they had to tear some of the things collected into tiny pieces and put them into their 'potion pot' - I was very impressed that so early in the school year all the children were able to share a pot between two with no squabbles. Patricia then showed them 4 bottles with coloured water in them (but it was wasn't coloured water oh no!) - the green one was filled  with caterpillar bogies, the yellow one had sun drops, the blue one moon drops & the red one was autumn! Each child go to pick a colour to add into their potion pot & they all had a magic wand to help stir the potion. Patricia added ground up tree roots (baking soda) and then some lemon juice - the children were enthralled as the potions bubbled & fizzed and spilled out of the potion pot.

Each child got to keep their magic wand ( a small stick) and got to choose either a witch or a wizard mask to colour in at home.
This was such a great activity and the children had so much fun and were chatting about their magic potions for the rest of the day. We placed the potions into the mud kitchen for them to play with tomorrow. 
This is definitely one I'd recommend to any schools & especially those in the Belfast area, as it is completely free to them. 
A massive thanks to Patricia & Rachel.