Forest School News

27th January 2020

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Willows
 
Last week, Willows children used the loppers for the first time, whilst helping to put together the bug hotel. They were so careful and sensible, that some of them had the  opportunity to use the loppers again this week…this time to help cut back some of the overgrown holly. They made a good job of trimming the overgrowth, and made one of the  hammocks-that had prickly branches hanging over it-much safer to use.
Choo-choo…here comes the rope train!
 
Oaks children were very inventive this week…creating a great game with a rope, that turned into a train! The train driver led the way, with passengers joining along the route. Not only was it great fun, but also demonstrated lots of developing social skills and negotiation, a huge amount of problem solving (especially when the  rope became wrapped around trees), and plenty of language and communication skills.
 
One of the activities on offer was colour matching-looking closely at a selection of natural objects and finding similar colour cards. This promoted lots of discussion…
 
Oaks children also had the opportunity to use and play with some number stones-using them for counting, adding, ordering and matching…and some of the class had fun investigating the mini-beast discovery table…
 
The outdoor ‘loose parts’ store was well used too…with drainpipes, tubes, cable reels, ropes, wooden planks and foam bricks all featuring in this ball run!
 
As always, a lovely happy morning all round.
Squirrel Obstacles, a Wormery and Sorting…dead or alive!
 
This morning, Acers began their session fulfilling a request from last week-which was to play ‘1,2,3…where are you’. They took turns to hide and respond to the  call of ‘1,2,3 where are you?’…with a loud shout- ‘1,2,3 I’m here!’ Everyone really enjoyed calling out or listening for where the hidden sounds were coming from!
 
Then we gathered in the log circle to discuss today’s activities. Some children chose to help design and make a squirrel obstacle course, using any of the many resources available. We were astounded at how creative the ideas were!

We started off by making a zip wire-the children tied a rope between two trees and clipped a pot onto it. The squirrel could sit in it and whizz from one end to the other!
 
Next came a swing…followed by a slide- with a barrier of bricks at the end to stop the squirrel falling off!
 
Next they added a balance beam, then a wooden pathway and at the end it was completed with a large pole to climb up. The pole was fitted into a big hole, which took a long time to dig!
 
Everyone was very proud of their hard work…and we think that lots of woodland creatures might be enjoying this over the next week!
 
Also today, we created a wormery. We dug for soil, carefully removing any stones or sticks. The soil was placed into the  wormery, and alternated with layers of sand. We found and added lots of worms too.
 
Then we added some leaves and covered the wormery over, as worms prefer it to be dark. We’ll be watching the worms move up and down the wormery over the next week or so and will making sure we spray it with water and add a few scraps of fruit or salad leaves so the worms have plenty to eat.
 
Lastly today, we talked about what we could see in the forest, that was living/dead/had never been alive. It was a bit tricky sometimes, but we all had a go at sorting out the things we’d found into the different groups.