Total beginner with group of kids

[chicken lady]

Hi all

I am a mum and home educate my kids. As part of this I am setting up a bushcraft style group for a group of about a dozen 10 year olds. I want to start small and build up to bigger things - I just don't know what I should start with, or what to aim towards. As the title suggests I am a total beginner. We go camping a lot, and like all things natural and messy and muddy.

We are planning to start with things like foraging, den building, knife skills (whittling), building fires, cooking outdoors, building up to camps out.

Any suggestions gratefully received, or point me to relevant resources.

A question about fires too - where are we allowed to do them?? We live in the West Midlands anre there are open areas such as the Lickey Hills, Clent and Baggeridge Park, but I don't know what the law says..

thanks so much for reading this

Lisa

[Tony1948]

To start with I'd reckamend a book by Richard mabey called food for Free,a guide to over 100 edible plants,berries,mushrooms,seaweed and shellfish and advice on when to gather,what to pick and how to cook it,the den buildings a good start.The knife skills I'd leve for a while till you get to now the kids and there temperment,Mora do a knife without a point for kids they are only cheep.The fire thing you will have to look in to,you can not go lighting fires where you like if you wont to teach them how to cook use 1or2 disposable BBQ.Hope this helps Lisa,any thing more just ask the guys &girls on ear will now most thingsAtb...............DONT GET EATEN BY THE BEARS....................TONY.

[JonnyP]

Good for you Lisa :0) Kids these days miss out on so much fun that can be had outside.
I would suggest you ask a local bushcraft school to come and help you for a day to get you going. Knife skills needs to be taught properly, and if foraging, you need to know what you are picking isn't going to poison you or the youngsters.
Other things can be self taught by watching vids like this site provides, and reading books etc.

Try going to campsites that allow fires, for somewhere to practice. http://campfires.cc/

[rich290185]

yep food for free is a great book taught me alot! you'll find most of what you want/need to know on here (forum and main site)

plus every one on here wants to help so you'll get loads of good advice.

also Ray Mears outdoors survival handbook is really good

[Mark W]

Why not find your local scout group? Try here; that's the sort of thing they do and they'd appreciate support from a like-minded adult.

[chris_lothian]

Hi,
Gotta agree, "food for free" is a top book, i'd read as much as i can if i was in your shoes. Lofty Wisemans "SAS Survival handbook" is invaluable reading imo and there are loads of great resources on the net if u look hard enough, nessmuk's book on woodcraft and camping is a good un too an gives ya a good insight into how things have, and have not changed over the years and is also free if u look around (good for cooking too)... although not totally relevant is worth a read.

The thing with kids an knives? I've shown a few youngsters how to make their own knives straight outta the forge including my son, right to the completion and they do listen pretty well and are carefull.... BUT... their minds do wander an it's a lot of work keeping them in focus, if you can teach them to respect a knife and let them know that it is their best friend but can also be their worst enemy then your onto a winner. I totally agree about the "knife without a point just for kids line". I made this for my cousins lad who is 13.


Good luck and my respects to you for what you are doing, it's not everyone that will take time to teach the "young uns" new and alternative skills from xbox and micro chips...lol.

All the best.
Chris

[snowleopard]

Watch the ray mears DVD for ideas.

P.s I am home-educated, isn't it great being able to do lots of bushcrafty things

[cuppa joe]

Hi there , make sure you don't need insurance.
It's a mad mad world but there are busy bodies everywhere and you are better safe than sorry.

[Yungen of Bury]

my own 2 pence says knife safety, absolutely paramount, if your doing an activity not requiring a knife then i can understand leaving it for later, but if there's any possibility there's a knife any where near the activity, knife safety first...

[Silverback]

zombie threads......