Toast some chestnuts on an open fire

You will need: Sweet chestnuts, a skillet or roasting pan, a fire pit, firewood, kindling, tinder,  matches and a grown up to closely supervise the activity!

Instructions:

1. Collect some dry firewood of different sizes (you will need dry wood that makes a loud snap when you break it) and with a grown-up light your fire.
2. Arrange a single layer of chestnuts in the skillet or roasting pan.
3. Put the pan over fire for 20 to 25 minutes. Shake the pan back and forth frequently while cooking.
4. Listen for the loud popping sounds as the chestnuts burst open.
5. You’ll know they’re done if the shells are broken open or are curled.
6. Peel when the chestnuts are still hot but cool enough to touch.
7. Enjoy!

Make natural Christmas decorations

You will need: natural materials such as pinecones, leaves, and sticks; any craft resources you have lying around such as glitter, glitter pens, paint or paint pens; cardboard, glue, scissors and string.

1. Go for a walk in the Forest or woodland to collect natural resources to make your decorations.
2. Wash and dry them near a radiator for a couple of hours.
3. See what you can create! Turn pinecones into miniature Christmas Trees, cover leaves in glitter or arrange sticks on the cardboard in the shape of a Christmas Tree or a star.
4. Leave to dry.
5. Attach string so you can hang your decoration and enjoy it for many years to come.

Make a stickman for a stickman treasure hunt

You will need: sticks, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue, scissors or secateurs and a leaf.

1. Go for a walk to search for a y-shaped stick to make the body and legs and a shorter stick for the arms. You will also need a leaf.
2. Clip a short piece off the end of one of the sticks to create a nose.
3. Position the nose at the top of the y-shaped stick where you imagine his face might be.
4. Stick the googly eyes over his nose.
5. Wrap the pipe cleaners around the sticks to bind stickman’s arms to his body and hold them in place.
6. Glue the leaf onto the top of the y-shaped stick to create a hat.
7. Hide stickman and create a treasure hunt so someone else can find him.
8. When you have finished stickman will make a lovely decoration for your family tree!

Create a marshmallow snowman

You will need: 3 marshmallows, mini marshmallows, a bamboo skewer, cocktail stick, some icing pens/squeezy icing tubes, sweets like liquorice allsorts to make a hat and liquorice strips to make a scarf.

1. Push the 3 marshmallows onto the skewer to make the head and body of the snowman.
2. Push the cocktail stick though the middle marshmallow to make the arms and stick mini marshmallow hands on the ends.
3. Add eyes, nose, mouth and buttons using the icing pens.
4. Create a hat using the sweets.
5. Add a scarf using the liquorice strips.
6. Get outside to toast your snowman on your fire. If you don’t have a firepit for toasting, you can use a tealight instead.

Go mammal tracking

There is lots of mud around at the moment – perfect conditions for mammal tracking! Can you find the ‘big 3’ wild large mammal tracks in the Heart of England Forest?

We don’t have any lions, elephants or rhinos in the Forest, but we do have plenty of deer, foxes and badgers. They are quite shy, so they might run away when they hear you coming, but their footprints are really easy to spot.

Here is our guide:

• The first tracks you might notice are from humans and dogs. There will be lots of those!
• Fox footprints are much narrower than dog prints, with longer claw marks
• Badger prints are very broad, have 5 toe pads and very, very long claws
• Deer are hooved animals so their tracks have 2 long and pointed ‘toes’. Sheep tracks are much more rounded at the top so you should be able to spot the difference. Roe deer are the most common, but you may also be able to find the tiny tracks of muntjac deer and the larger tracks of fallow deer.

Happy hunting!