Oaks set off for their Forest School session in the week of the Lunar new year. The class have been learning about the story of ‘The Great Race’ in which the order of the animals in the Chinese Lunar New Year are determined. This year is the year of the rabbit. They played a game of ‘fox and rabbit’.
The class learned about how to identify animals by their tracks and used flour, sieves and stencils to create some tracks on the woodland floor. They also had a go at moving like rabbits, to try to create their distinctive track marks and learn about how rabbits move.
On the way to the Forest School area, the Oaks looked at compasses. They all found North and learned how to set their compasses correctly. We played a game, learning about the different directions and the degrees in which North, East, South and West point in a 360 degree circle. Some children continued using their compasses in the Forest School area as part of their play.
The water in the Forest School area is finally starting to dry up, so the whole class spent some time clearing the area which has become very overgrown. They collected wood and sticks, removed rubbish and footballs from the area and worked together as a team to move large pieces of wood and palettes. It was great to see them working together so well and to have more space to explore and play in.
Some of the large sticks and branches were used to build dens. Some children used rope to tie some branches together to make a ladder and they even designed and made a coat rack for their den!
The children dug out some clay and had a go at continuing to create bricks which they started last session.
We put up a slack line between some of the trees in the wooded area and the children took turns taking physical risks and challenges by walking along it.
This week some of the children developed their tool skills, by using knives to start to carve with. They were great at listening to how to use the tools in a safe way. First they used pruning saws to cut the wood to a useable length. Then they had a go at peeling bark, sharpening the ends of sticks and some started to create patterns on their sticks and even tried to carve small mushrooms.
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.
