Owls set off to the woods for their forest school session, carrying everything that we needed in the woods for the day as sadly the trailer had a flat tyre. As they made their way through the woods many of the class noticed how much everything had grown since their last visit “it’s like a jungle”. Owl’s class were given a pot of cream to shake as they made their way through the wood, with the hope that they would have some butter by the time they arrived at forest school. A little more shaking needed as it was not quite ready.
Once we arrived we had a recap on how to be safe and then they all set off to explore.
A large amount of the class decided to den build today. They started by making some improvements to some existing dens from previous sessions. However this quickly turned onto a new project all together. They worked well as a team to gather as much wood as they could to make their new fort/tree house. It was great to listen to them plan and work out what they needed to support this structure, one child became the safety inspector for all the new pieces being added. Using small sticks as digging tools they dug holes to put the upright posts in, then placed long lengths of wood on top of these posts and into a nearby tree creating a platform. They then gathered some smaller pieces of wood to start building up the sides to create the walls. I was really impressed with the way they all worked together, listening to each other’s ideas. GREAT TEAM WORK OWLS!
By now our cream had become butter, the class were shown how the cream separates into butter and butter milk. They then had the chance to try both the butter milk and some of the butter on a cracker. The butter was very popular with many of the class coming up for seconds.
Some children helped to put up the slackline, wrapping it round the tree and making sure that there were no twists in it. They then tried out their arm strength by pulling the ratchet as tight as they could. The top line that is normally put up for them to hold onto for balance was not put up today. Instead the children were given two long sticks to use either side for balance to see if they could make their way along the slack line without falling off.
They were a little wobbly to start, however it was not long before some of the class were trying to walk the slackline not holding onto anything. They got quite good at this, managing to make it half way before they topped off.
We finished the session by listening to what others had enjoyed today at forest school:
“butter”
“making the tree house”
“the hammock”
