Oaks started Forest School today with moving some fencing material down to our site. They worked in pairs to carry each rail as they were a little too long and heavy to carry alone.
A few children practised the fire lighting skills they had learnt in their previous sessions; they are defiantly getting faster at producing the spark that lights the cotton wool. Once the fire was established the kettle was filled and hung over the fire to boil. Oaks then took it in turns to sit by the fire and toast a marshmallow, this was then placed between two biscuits ready for eating – “so yummy”. The kettle soon boiled and everyone enjoyed a warm hot chocolate to go with the s’mores.
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.
Some of the class spent time removing the mud from the daily mile track. They did this by using shovels and brooms to scrape and then sweep as much of the mud away as they could. A channel was dug so that the water could run away. This became so muddy that a couple of the class lost their wellies in the channel, these had to be dug out to get them back!
Some of the children used palm drills to make a hole in a disc of wood, this was quite tricky as the wood was very seasoned but the children persevered until they had made it all the way through. They then used pens to decorate their disk, some as Christmas decorations; one was a picture of a Christmas tree – “a Christmas tree to hang on my Christmas tree”. Others were decorated with nature pictures with the children adding a piece of string so that they could be hung up.