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Forest School January - April 2025

Forest School May - July 2024

Forest School September - December 2024 - see below

 

 Robins, Eagles  and Fledglings this year will be enjoying, afternoon forest school sessions. This involves interaction with each other where communication is learnt and confidence gained.

 

No matter the weather, the children were eager to get outside in the wet and mud. They were particularly keen to toast marshmallows and make smalls.  As always a great success.

Camp Fire December

 

Fledglings enjoyed a sticky time covering cones with lard and then rolling them around bird seed. The end results will benefit the wildlife that regularly visit our school. 

 

At the start of the session today the children were busy squishing lard in readiness for bird seed to be added to make a seed ball that they could place at home in their garden.  Overall, we managed to keep the lard and seed in the bags and not on ourselves. 

Following this the children spent the rest of the afternoon den building, making a hot tub , cooking, tree climbing, looking for birds, digging holes and generally having a great time. 

Seed Balls and Imaginary Play

 

This week, Fledglings have been learning about Scotland it's dress, dance, food, music and traditions. The Clootie Tree is a tree, decorated with scraps of material as a homage to any holy wells or streams they grow by. These sources of clean water have been places of healing for millennia, with ancient Celtic beliefs in spirits and nature. As a class, the children found this activity very cathartic

Clootie Tree Decorating

 

Robins started their afternoon by collecting small, clean, natural items to make a freeze.  Hopefully it will freeze tonight and the freeze art can dangle to show off its beauty in the sunlight tomorrow. The jigsaw run was a success and the children worked in groups to reassemble their pieces.  They were very competitive.  Finally, free play and the children decide to dig for treasure.  Lots of roots were discovered from the surrounding trees but also plastic which was placed in the bin. 

Freeze art, jigsaw run, and digging for treasure

 

Small den building for farm animals was the theme of the day and children were demonstrating gross motor skills when using mallets. Adult role play was also evident as the children became cooks  and were busy making a birthday cake for one of their friends whose birthday is tomorrow. We all gathered round and sang happy birthday as she blew out the pretend candles on her leaf cake. 

Small Den Building and Role Model Play

Fledglings and  Robins were very busy putting together the ingredients to make a safe place for an over wintering hedgehog. Using leaves, shredded paper and hay the winter homes were  soon assembled and placed in various spots on the school grounds. Free play followed with binoculars and some of the children were spotting old birds nests which at this time of year are very visible. 

Hedgehog home building

 

Fledglings spent time printing leaves today. The rest of the session was free play.

Leaf Printing

 

 

This afternoon, after watching a time lapse video of an Orb spider, the children were tasked with making their own web using willow and wool. Once it was set up they played the game 'Catch the Spider'.

Spider web making

 

Fledglings enjoyed a whole morning of Forest School with lots of counting, how many treasures could you place in a small container. The maximum today was 17 and the children were brilliant at counting out their finds. 

We also had a go at hammering in nails, either three or four. They made triangles, a square and a straight line. These were then woven in string to create a fabulous pattern. To finish the children Helped saw their designs to the right size. 

Thank you Fledglings for showing such perseverance today.

Hammer and Nails

 

Our afternoon started with each child selecting a colourful feather and then they were asked to thread an assortment of leaves on to it . They looked very attractive when the children had finished. We moved on to weaving around two sticks to create another pattern, not as easy as you might think when you have a long piece of wool to deal with. Well done to everyone for demonstrating fine motor skills today.

Once finished the children went into free play and we had the cook busy making chocolate soup also bird spotting with binoculars and playing on and in the tunnel as well as pretend fishing. 

Weaving and Threading

 

Thinking about the topic 'The Fire Of London', Robins were able to build their own wattle and daub wall. A group of children started by hammering in willow into the soil to start the frame structure. Following this another group wove willow around the uprights to provide strength to the uprights. Once this was completed we had a base to put the mixture of mud and hay on to the sides. It was very sticky plastering this on but for some of the children, the stickier the better.

Wattle and Daub

 

Fledglings were very eager to help with the last part of the welly stand and as you can see below enjoyed using the screwdriver today. In between this the children were using mallets to break open rotting logs or playing kitchen where a soup was being served.  At the start of the session we found some fallen branches whilst on a hunt for conkers and these the children moved safely into our forest school area. 

Mallets and screwdrivers

 

Our focus today was sawing wood, then screwing pieces together, followed by assembling part of the new welly stand. Most of the children had a go at the sawing but apart from that they were playing dens, making potions, making faces from nature, using mallets to construct small houses from sticks, discovering nature in damp corners - in this case a large frog that we rehomed in the pond area for its own safety - and playing with planks to make impromptu seesaws.  What a busy afternoon.  

Making a welly stand

  

Today the fledglings were asked to create rubbings from different surfaces using  a variety of colours. When they had finished this activity they selected their best bit and this was then cut out to form the badge inner. They also used nature to make a face in the mole hills and had time for free play in the forest school area.  

Badges and Faces

 

This wasn't the easiest of activities today as we started outside then moved inside due to a thunderstorm but the children  were helpful in stuffing the hessian, clothing and footwear. Other children assisted in holding the willow as it was bond together to create an arm and strengthen the legs.  We still have hair to complete which will comprise of ivy strands and a central pole will be required to support Calamity the scarecrow in the field. 

Scarecrow Constructing

  

Following on from the topic 'Cave Baby', the Robins children made up a solution of slurry and then finding a suitable painting tool created pictures from images that dated back 40,000 years! What fabulous results we achieved today. 

Cave Painting

 

Creating Mud faces was the theme of  forest school for Robins and Fledglings children,  although the Robin  hedgehog mud sculptures turned out very well indeed. 

Mud Faces Fledglings

 

Mud Faces

 

Welcome Fledglings as you start exploring the forest school area. We started with a little bit of parachute fun, 'Catch the Ball', followed by exploring the forest school area. tree climbing, fire building, making a den, going on a boat ride and water play. A perfect way to end the week.  

Our First Forest School Session

 

Robins spent part of  their first forest school session as a new Year 1/2 class by  creating a pot pouri for their bedrooms. 

Pot Pouri