Forest School

Forest School is a child-centered inspirational learning process, that offers opportunities for holistic growth through regular sessions. It is a long-term program that supports play, exploration and supported risk taking. It develops confidence and self-esteem through learner inspired, hands-on experiences in a natural setting.

What is forest school?

why is it important?

Forest school: Text

Forest school: About

Activities during forest school:

Here are just some of the activities we have done during our Forest School sessions.

We made bug hotels, we found lots of different thickness sticks and foliage which the children put into the cardboard tube to make a great home for insects.

This exercise was good for improving fine motor skills and for discussing the size of objects such as a long stick, a thick stick etc and also for counting.

We went on a bug hunt, with our bug collecting kit, it was great fun, we searched in the bark of trees and found a centipede which was extremely interesting, looking at how he moved and felt his way around the container, we also found worms, a woodlice and a slug. We spoke about how different all the creatures were, the different places they lived, what they might eat, if they moved fast or slow.

We found some big sticks as tall as we are and placed them on a long piece of paper, dipped our wellies in paint and walked up the paper next to the stick to see how many steps high we are.

We found a fallen branch off one of the trees and decided to try and entice worms up from the ground by using the branch to gently pat the ground, this was a big hit with the children and it kept them engaged for a while, we explained that the worms would think the tapping sound was rain and would come up to investigate.

We gave the children an empty yogurt pot with some air dry clay in the bottom, we went for a walk though the woods and collected any items that we found interesting, pushing them into the clay to produce an impression. lots of talking points with this activity including, size, texture, colour.

For children in need week, we went to Robinswood Hill and looked for items in nature which we could use to paint our pudsey pictures, we found sticks, stones, flowers which we used instead of using paint brushes.

At Christmas we made wooden Christmas tree decorations out of sticks which the children were encouraged to cut to size with adult help using a hacksaw. we spoke about safety and how the blade was sharp, how to hold the handle correctly and to cut away from yourself.

Forest school: Projects