Oak Class were very excited for their first session of Forest School as they headed out onto the school grounds and found somewhere to sit around the fire circle. The children learnt the rules for keeping safe around the fire.
A group of children went foraging for blackberries, and once they had collected enough they added a little water and using a large stick they crushed up the blackberries to make paint. Some children added charcoal to their paint to make a different colour to paint with. They then used sticks and leaves to create some beautiful pictures.
As the children explored the Forest School area they came across something: “I found a toad”. Looking at it closer, what they had actually found was a rather large frog. The children watched the frog move and hop across the ground, and as they watched we talked about the markings on the frog and the differences between a frog and a toad. Oak also did lots of bug hunting, carefully placing their findings in magnifying pots so they could take a closer look.
There were all sorts of creations in the mud kitchen. A few of the children made some small mud cakes that were decorated with flowers and leaves. They walked around offering people a cake.
We finished our session with a game of ‘keeper of the keys’. The children took it in turns to be the keeper in the middle, then running as fast as they could to catch their class mate that had just ‘stolen’ the keys. They got so engrossed that a few children did more than one lap of the circle. Great first session Oak Class!
