Before the session, it was great to see Maples topic books with their reflections about their last session. They had annotated photographs of themselves at Forest School and written about what they had enjoyed and why.
Maples continued to practise their fire lighting skills this week, recalling the skills practised from their last session. They helped sort the sticks into different sizes to start the fire with. Once the fire was going, the children watched popcorn ‘pop’ by heating it on their fire with great engagement! And of course eating it! Some children helped to fix the popcorn maker, talking through their problem solving ideas to make it better for the second round of cooking.
Then there was time to explore and play in the woodland. Maples showed particular interests in physical risks and challenges. They showed this through tree climbing, digging, stick creativity, swinging and by using the slack line.
There was some excellent turn taking and balancing on the slack line. It was great to see the children taking risks and challenging themselves with working out how to balance, how to work out the best way of moving along the line carefully and how to take turns and share the space with each other.
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, 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.
Using tools to dig in the large ‘dinosaur footprint’ hole they had created was very popular. They were very engaged in making clay balls with the clay which they had dug out.
Due to all of the rain, a stream and a pool of water had been created. Some of the class were very interested in working out how to dam and then divert the flow of the water into the ditch behind the Forest School area. It was brilliant to see such great teamwork, such as using cups to pass water along a line and pour it into the ditch.
Part of the Forest School experience is about risk and challenge and taking responsibility for their individual choices. Some children chose to stay under the shelter and create with wood, pens and wool. Some other children got very wet and muddy and started to learn about their choices, how they explored and how their choices affected how they felt as a result of the weather and elements they engaged in. Some got water in their boots, as they chose to go in the water. Some got very muddy as they chose to engage with digging and exploring in the mud. Afterwards we talked about taking individual responsibility for ourselves and considering the cause and effect of the weather, seasons and elements.
There were some creative uses of found objects- making bows and developing the creations they had made last session. Some children used coloured string and wool to decorate, wrap and weave around sticks following their own ideas. There were also some designs beautifully drawn on wood.
