It was great to see the perseverance of the children getting themselves ready, with their wellies and waterproofs as a class, they raced against a 7 minute timer.

The Impact of Forest School for the children is the knowledge the children have gained from the Forest School experience.

The impact can be seen through the skills gained, tools used, art and craft activities, observations and knowledge of the fruit, plants trees in relation to the seasons and the skills involved in learning how to play Forest School games.

Chestnuts played a game of fox and rabbit. They had a lot of fun, working together as a class, to protect the rabbit inside their circle, from the fox outside!

The children picked some blackberries, hawthorn berries and sloes after identifying them correctly with the adults. They learned they shouldn’t ever eat anything they pick, unless their supporting adults have discussed it with them, because it might make them ill. They managed to collect a huge range of berries, creating a plentiful supply to make their paint with.

Some of the children had a go at painting and mark making with blackberry paint, made from the mushed up blackberries they had collected. They created a beautiful painting on a large sheet of fabric. In the sunshine it was great to see the variety of colours and hues of purples and reds and to see the children’s creative ideas and name writing.

Using some clay and some mud dug from the ground, the children created some ‘seed bombs’ by squishing the clay and incorporating the calendula and poppy seeds inside their rolled spheres. They carefully set them to dry, so they can throw them into their garden beds in the spring as a ‘seed bomb’ to create a lovely flower patch, to then collect seeds from next year. “I wish I could make more and more and more and throw them on the grass to change the school field into a meadow”.

All of the children reflected on what they had done and enjoyed during the session by writing down their favourite activity at the end of the day, supporting each other with discussion and help with sounding out and writing.

Well done Chestnuts class, what a productive, fun filled afternoon!

If anyone has any old, flat white fabric sheets, we could always use them for creative projects with the children at Forest School.

The Autumn sunshine was beautiful for the Oaks today as they talked about signs of the season. They found sticks to collect their leaves onto and created some leaf kebabs!

Using the Autumn leaves they learned how to preserve them by dipping them into molten beeswax. The children used their senses to work out what kind of wax they were using…”it smells like honey!” Some worked together to then create a beautiful hanging leaf mobile, which they hung in their Forest School shelter.

Some of the children took rubbings of their wax dipped leaves and talked about the different colours and textures of the leaves they had found. Some found Oak galls which created a bumpy texture on the underside of the leaves, which looked great in the leaf rubbings.

The class played a game of fox and rabbit, taking it in turns to chase and find a ‘safe’ place in a rabbit burrow as they played.

The Impact of Forest School for the children is the knowledge the children have gained from the Forest School experience.

The impact can be seen through the skills gained, tools used, art and craft activities, observations and knowledge of the fruit, plants trees in relation to the seasons and the skills involved in learning how to play Forest School games.

The mud kitchen was popular, with the children creating messy dishes, but also learning some of the names of plants and berries which they added to their creations. There was lots of grassy mud ‘noodles’ and some found some minty ground ivy and blood red hawthorn berries to add into their mixes.