Forest School Kit

Children will be taking part in most weather conditions so please ensure they have the correct kit to take part. Please ensure they bring the following items to school:

• Warm trousers (not jeans please)

• Warm jumper

• Long sleeved top

• Waterproof coat

• Waterproof trousers

• Gloves e.g. gardening gloves or thick gloves when it gets cold

• Wellington boots or waterproof walking boots

Please visit Willows’ Class Page and click on the Forest School icon to get a glimpse into what we do!

Click on the oak leaf to find out what we have been doing so far in Forest Schools...

We had a Forest School Day where each class took responsibility for a zone. We orientated our map, cleared or repaired the zone, worked together as a team and then played together as friends. We also had drop scones cooked over the fire.They were delicious!

Over the last few weeks we have been working on a project to build a raft.

We had to tell Mrs. Spence how to do this successfully. We decided to use sticks, test them and sort them into float and not float, sort them in length and width and weave them together using different thickness of string. However, they were quite wobbly so we strengthened them by adding “planks” in the opposite direction to our sticks. Then we added a sail and mast. All that is left is to test them!

Following last week’s discovery of wild garlic growing by our bug hotel, Mrs. Spence went foraging over the Bank Holiday to collect some from a bigger patch. We discovered you could eat all parts of the plant but today we just used the leaves. We chopped them and sprinkled them into soft cream cheese, mixed it all up and spread it onto french stick slices. Then we tasted it! Most of us were pleasantly surprised and ate it all up! Maybe next time we will have it in heated bread loaves over the forest fire pit.

We also did some gardening in the raised beds and made some wild flower studies by drawing ones that actually grow in our Forest School woodland area. 

Hunting for signs of Spring using tick lists as well as making our own. We used mud ink to record our findings.

We have also been learning how to climb trees! There were mixed emotions!

Forest School Year 1 and EYFS January

Map making, trail following,

Chinese dragon wind socks - all involved problem solving, communicating, working as a team and choosing materials for a reason, 

Following our fire lighting and safety session last week, we experimented with the remnants of the fire. 

We discovered that the semi burnt sticks left marks on our paper and that we could draw with the charcoal - aswell as turn ourselves into warriors ready for battle. 

We lay down under the trees and listened to the different sounds that we could hear. We gazed up at the sky and watched the leaves dancing and the clouds drifting. We closed our eyes and felt our breath and thought about how our forest school area makes us feel. Then we made feelings sticks, using different colours and materials to express our feelings.

KS1 and EYFS First Group Visit!

Our first visit, altogether, to the Forest School Area involved exploring the different exploration zones. 

We had an interesting time discovering in the Wildlife Zone, a messy but tasty time in the Mud Kitchen Zone, an imaginative time in the Creative Zone and a shape making time in the Fire Pit Zone.