Today Oaks Class started their session by identifying and collecting sticky weed. We made it into a ball to practise throwing and catching as a name game.
We went to the field and played a brilliant game of ‘Beetle Tag’. The children all were beetles and scurried around trying to run away from the birds who were trying to ‘tag’ them. When they were tagged they had to lie on their backs like an upturned beetle until one of their friends rescued them.
The class all took turns to be the birds and were very fast and agile with their game play in the sunshine.
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 and trees in relation to the seasons and the skills involved in learning how to play Forest School Games.
This week Oaks learned to light a fire and how to be safe around it. They used cotton wool and fire strikers to ignite it, then placed it onto the top of the fire to burn down.
They talked about how they could tell which way the wind was blowing, by noticing the wood smoke flowing in a particular direction.
The class learned to identify Elderflower by the flowers and their scent. They then used their wood fire to make pancake fritters. We tried elderflower and dandelion fritters and all the children who tried them agreed they were delicious!
Then the children went on to learn more about different flowers on the Forest School site by collecting and printing them onto fabric with a hammers.
Lots of the children spent time playing in the wild areas of the site, following their own ideas and interests. They loved the tyre swing, the hammock and climbing trees independently.
There was lots of digging in the big hole at the back of the site and playing in the mud kitchen with saucepans and water.
Some of the children continued playing the 3 in a row, ladybird noughts and crosses game which they started playing at their last session.
At the end of the session the children tried passing a ‘woodland whisper’ along the full length of the line of 29 children. It started as elderflower and ended up… good attempt, but we will need to practise again! The children were lovely and quiet enough for everyone to hear the birdsong throughout.
