Forest School

WHAT IS FOREST SCHOOL?

Forest School is an exciting opportunity for your child to experience nature and learn outdoors. At Forest School your child will learn from first hand experiences and develop skills like: perseverance, resilience, responsibility, independence, inquisitiveness and social skills. Your child will also be able to practice and use their literacy, speaking and listening and numeracy skills.

Every Forest School program is designed specifically to meet the needs of the group. It will therefore provide your child with an individually tailored program to help them develop and enhance their school curriculum. Emma and Donna, from Forever Green Forest School, run Forest School sessions supported by the class teachers.  Sessions will take place on the corner of the school field amongst the trees that border the field.

Our Forest School space has been developed tremendously over the last 3 years. We now have a number of new saplings, an outdoor classroom, a school garden, willow tunnels and, under development, a school pond!  Our Reception class goes to Forest School every Wednesday for the whole year. All other year groups go for half a term each.

It was our first real rainy day of the year so far and so we enjoyed being together around the fire, under the shelter, listening to the raindrops today. 

Year 4

It was a pleasure to welcome so many parents to Forest School today. The children really enjoyed sharing the experience with them and showing them around again. We started with a body check in, before moving into our welcome routine, with some of the parents joining in with the name game too.

Next we gathered together to play Giants, Wizards and Elves. The children were great at remembering to get in a group huddle, including everyone in the decision making process. Once a group decision was made by each team, the teams met in the middle to show their action. Quick thinking was involved as the players needed to remember if they needed to run away or chase the other team. It was lots of fun and kept us warm and laughing.

After this, we gathered at the log circle to hear Emma tell the story of The Deer Mother: an old folktale about the Winter solstice. This story tells of the courageous Deer Mother travelling to Southern lands to bring back the Sun to break the endless Winter. 

For the rest of the session, the children followed their own interests to meet different needs. Those that had a need to be creative today sat by the fire, bending willow branches into willow hoops, which they tied pieces of red, green and white fabric around to create rag wreaths. Once again, this took a lot of care, time and patience. Others used branches of the fir tree and ivy to wrap around their willow hoops to make more natural wreaths. Some children enjoyed being by the fire, building it, lighting it and then preparing a Christmas Poppity Ping mixture to fry on the fire. They needed to take turns in measuring, weighing and mixing the mixture and then turning the little doughnuts over as they cooked. As always, cooking around the fire brings a community together, sharing stories of different cultures and traditions, which is always joyous to hear.We also had some impromptu storytelling and singing around the fire as we cooked.Finally we had our clay available today, which some children used to make reindeer like the Deer Mother in the story. There were also some children who had a need for movement, which they met balancing on the slackline and swinging on the tyre swings.

To conclude our session, we enjoyed tasting our Poppity Pings and a song or two, so we sang ‘In the Forest’ at the end which made us all laugh.

Reception

Reception got themselves ready in their layers before heading out to Forest School for our log circle welcome routine. Seeing how far they have come in confidence with the welcome routine in the term is amazing. 

Next we gathered together to play Squirrels. They really enjoy this running around game and are becoming more familiar with the commands each week. They can now play it with a lot more pace and find a partner to be a 'tree' with so quickly.  The fox didn’t have a chance of catching squirrels at all!

After this, we gathered at the log circle to hear the story of Stickman. Those children that were familiar with the story enjoyed joining in with the telling. Sharing familiar stories where a child joins in helps to increase their feeling of self-worth. As they join in, the feeling of affirmation that 'I can do this, I know what I'm doing' is an excellent self-esteem booster. 

For the rest of the session the children followed their own interests with many meeting their need for creativity in the craft area as they made stick people using sticks, clay, pipe cleaners and pieces of material. Activities such as this support their creativity, fine motor development and perseverance. Others had a go at shaping the clay to make reindeers and their own creations. Manipulating the clay into different shapes can really strengthen the muscles in the hand and develop creativity. Those that were not sure how to make it were encouraged to try different strategies out and were also reassured that it doesn't matter if it doesn't work straight away. We learn by trying things out. Finally some spent their time exploring the site with their friends, relaxing in the hammocks, digging, cooking in the mud kitchen and playing with the Forest Friends. Many children met their need for movement by playing running games. 

The wind really picked up as the session went on and so we finished our session inside with some songs. The children enjoyed warming their bodies up again with some action songs.