Forest School Adventure (part 7)

Today we were in the forest with 24 children aged between 3 and 8 years old. The day started damp because of sea mist, cleared up, and returned to misty as we packed up.

We started with some activities but held back with a few more ready to bring out as the day progressed. 

Other than the usual requests for help with shoelaces and dungarees, it was a session where all the children found ways to enjoy and engage with their surroundings while mostly ignoring the adults! This must look strange from the outside, but child-led, self-motivation is what Forest School aims for, and today the children cooperated, collaborated, made friends, and explored.

They looked at the Forest from different levels. Climbing is always popular and a great vantage point to just watch what others are doing.

Swinging and bouncing are both exciting and soothing at times. Finding tour balance with a friend just makes it more fun!


Putting on a show, Forest Karaoke, is always a winner, as is making tour own props, and having an audience of toy foxes, hedgehogs, and mice!

Lunch is everyone's favourite, and today's cheesy wraps disappeared fast! 

We brought out tools and the slack line this afternoon, setting new challenges for core strength and coordination. Lots of children still wanted to create with clay and it became a very bustling, chatty, social activity...

Although exploring alone always has an appeal!

It was a day of smiles and giggles. No session runs like clockwork, but teamwork will always mean tiny oversights or problems that develop can be dealt with effectively and has little to no impact on the children's exploring.



Everyone traipsed out of the forest tired, smiling, and vaguely clean!

Games had been played. Games had been devised. The chance to move and the chance to sit. The opportunity to create with friends, and the opportunity to ignore it all and do tour own thing.

All the children were chattering about their next session.

So watch this space to see what it brings!


Location: United Kingdom

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Indoor Forest School

Image
On rare occasions, we need to cover a Forest School session INSIDE. It may be because the weather prevents a session, it may be a staffing issue, it may be an introduction for children who will find the outdoors challenging, but whatever causes it, there are times when setting up activities in a classroom is suddenly needed. I've said before that I have a large IKEA blue bag that I keep certain activities in, these are not necessarily ones I can/will use in Forest School, like jigsaw puzzles, colouring, cutting out, etc. It's fairly quick to add some of the nature table items, bug ID, and bird guides, etc. into the bag to make what is basically 'nature learning' feel a little like Indoor Forest School! One week in December started with me under the duvet with a fever and headache, and a PCR test pending. School canceled Forest School because waiting each day to decide what the following day's timetable would be was too hectic. So once back in on the Wednesday indoor...
Read more

Forest School and GCSEs

Image
Earlier in the year, I wondered aloud - well, in print - why Forest School isn't automatically offered as an add-on to teacher training. I know of a few universities that organise visits to sessions, and even one or two that buy in extra training and regularly send the students to a session to participate, not just observe, but it isn't standard practice. Whether Covid is on the rise, mutating again, or slowly dying out, in this post-lockdown world getting children outside as much as possible is the healthiest option! Outdoor learning has proven time and again that it promotes well-being and increases positive mental health , as well as promoting physical health . With the new GCSE in Natural History on the horizon Secondary Schools may well find embracing Forest School an easy way to introduce the subject. Of course, Forest School is not yet embedded in all Primary Schools, those that have it may well find their pupils at an advantage when choosing such a GCSE a few years aft...
Read more

Term 1 2024

Image
Our Forest School life has been busy - ridiculously BUSY! Keeping the weekly Blog going became impossible, so now we are at the end of Term 1, we're going to recap everything that's happened since the summer holidsys ended, and how we continue to juggle school, community, and training, whist being as child focused and child led as possible!  After a Summer 'resting' our grounds had grown 4m brambles, 2 metre stinging nettles, and tunnels in the bushes grew and merged closed! When September dawned we had a huge amount of site maintenance to do before we could even consider any site development! Once 60% of it was complete it was safe enough to hold sessions there and Chartham Pupils started their trek outdoors. This year we're trialling a different timetable for providing them session. In Term 1, years 1, 3, & 5 have had Forest School. We are a two-form entry school so both classes in the year group are out at the same time, but on different sites with different ...
Read more