Forest School Update 31st March

As the spring equinox (eui- equal, nox- night) has come, the bluebells are growing in the woodland, so to preserve these amazing plants, the Owls had their session on a wet field this week.

After learning a song about spring the class were introduced to the game of ‘Giants, Wizards, Elves’. They had to work as a team to decide which magical creature they would be, in a game similar to ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

The children all played a game of ‘Spirit of the forest’ where they had to dodge the spirit of the forest, without being turned into trees. Through the game the class learned about different aspects of a woodland and how the balance of trees and animals are important to the health and development of this ecosystem.

Owls had a scavenger hunt, where they followed clues to various locations around the school field site. Once they had decoded the riddles, they found some Easter treats!

Lots of the class explored and played independently, making up games, making dens and creating with wood and tools.

They learned how to use a pruning saw safely with a saw horse, to cut their wood to length. Once the children had shown an understanding of safe tool use, some moved onto using knives to start to carve with. They had a go at peeling bark, sharpening the ends of sticks and some started to create patterns on their work.

Some of the children went on to make their own pens out of elder, by pushing holes in the soft centre of the wood and inserting charcoal.

There was time to continue exploring the pond area. A group of children cleared some winter debris and found evidence of newts, frogspawn and other life.

A huge thank you to the parent volunteers who came and supported the children so brilliantly and got involved in all of their play and supported the exploration of the pond area.