We started our Forest School session today by going to the pond area in groups to see what was living in the water. The class were asked what they thought they might catch before we started “a fish”, “a frog”. Although they did not find either of these things they did find plenty of other creatures. Using an ID sheet they were able to identify that they had caught some water louse, Ramshorn snails, Caddisfly larvae and a newt. Everything was put into a clear tray so the children were able to look at them from the bottom. Doing this they were able to see the newts tummy “it’s orange”.
The children then got into small groups for a scavenger hunt. The had lots of different things to find, from something long to something that crawls. They worked together to find as many things as they could, but finding something red proved to be a little tricky.
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 and trees in relation to the seasons and the skills involved in learning how to play Forest School games.
Maples then had the job of transporting as much woodchip down to Forest School as they could. Climbing on top of the woodchip pile they started to fill their containers “it smells like Christmas”. They then carried their containers down the field to the site. Some of the class stayed to spread out the woodchip inside the fire circle whereas others went back and forth bringing down more woodchip. They even managed to rope Oaks class into carrying some down as they did their daily Active Mile. As they got deeper into the pile they noticed that the woodchip was really warm. We talked about the reason why it was getting warm, which was because the pile was starting to decompose. It was great to see such team work from all the children at Park Mead. Some were so keen that they offered to continue to move it the next day!
There was lots of free play at Forest School today, we had some great imagination being used in the mud kitchen with all sorts of creations being made “I’m making pancakes with strawberries and vanilla”. There were also children with great tree climbing and den building skills.
