Fables at the Yorkshire Arboretum

Rebecca McLaughlin shares her recent volunteering experience at her daughter’s school.

I was lucky enough to combine my CSR day through Minster with my daughter’s school trip. The children, who are in reception class, had been learning all about fables and went to the Yorkshire Arboretum to see their favourite stories being brought to life.

We were met by a group of amazing volunteers who provide stimulating learning and activity sessions for schools.

First up was the story of The Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children were led to a bridge and three of them were picked to play the parts of the 3 goats, cue the fallout from those that were not picked! The role of the troll was played by Brian, a gentleman who had a loud and bellowing voice and was perfect for the part. The children were given props to use to help act out the story and took great delight in screaming when the troll made an appearance.

The children were then spilt into three groups for the story of the Three Little Pigs. One group had to make a house out of Lego and of course the children took this to mean that they could make whatever they liked, which turned out ok in the end as they just put them all together. The group that had the straw had great fun throwing it at each other and the sticks made great swords! The children then had so much fun trying to blow them all down.

The children then settled down for the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a much quieter scene when compared to that of the Three Little Pigs.

The children had lunch in a clearing in the woods and after they had eaten, they spent their time exploring and climbing the trees. Most of my time was spent getting the children back down again when they had climbed too high!

After briefly considering a Teaching Assistant role at one-point years ago, mainly for the holidays of course, I can safely say that I am happy to leave this to the experts. The teachers did a brilliant job, and the children were well behaved, for the most part.

Schools often need volunteers to be able to take the children on school trips and it was wonderful to see my daughter and her classmates putting what they had been learning into action in such a fun way.

More information about the Yorkshire Arboretum and how you could volunteer with them can be found on their website.