Using tree branches and logs

Whenever a tree is cut down, especially at school, I rush over and ask for someone to cut me some log pieces.

Logs of varying heights, less than 500mm, can be placed side by side in a curvy line to make stepping stones, and to border a play space or garden bed. In this case, the logs can be dug into the ground a little so they are stable and permanently in one place. Whatever there purpose, children will climb on them, run along them, sit on them and parents will perch on them to chat.
Log slices, about 10cm thick make great stepping stones to guide children to a particular part of the playground, and can easily be picked up and moved to highlight another area. Some times these pieces split, and then they move to the sand pit, or make their way around the yard to stand on their sides in some kind of play creation.

I also have log pieces in the playground that are small and light enough for the children to pick up and carry, yet heavy enough to present a challenge. Large flat stepping stones require two or three children to work together to move them, or children may roll them, or use their shovels to lever them up. I have never suggested to the children that these log pieces can be moved. I wait patiently to see when they will discover this themselves. This year I have been waiting a long time.

I recently brought in some cherry branches, scavenged from a friends trailor waiting to go to the tip. They were about as thick as my arm and about 4 feet long. I was going to cut them into smaller lengths to put in the sandpit for whatever purpose the children saw fit. But the children found them first. One piece had a bend in it of almost 90 degrees. This piece was dragged off to become a 'pipe' into the sandpit. Then a water tank was required, and the children discovered that the log pieces could be moved to become the tank. One child called for other's to come and help. Other children joined in, and worked out how to use logs to prop up get their branches at such an angle that the 'water' would run down them into the sandpit.

I was excited to see them using the logs around them, and excited to see them all working together to solve the challenges in their creations and play.