Willows started their Forest School session today by getting into pairs and going on a Spring scavenger hunt. They worked well in their pairs and found lots of different things, including something yellow and something that crawls. They made piles of their findings so they could show them to Dormouse.
The class then made their way to the pond area by the allotment. Before they started the children were asked what they thought may be hiding in the water “a tree frog”. Then they dipped their nets into the water and checked to see if they had caught anything.
Everything they caught was carefully put into a tray of pond water. The children then used an ID sheet to identify what they had caught. They caught a ramshorn snail and a few water louse. Once down at Forest School the children took it in turns to have a go at pond dipping in the other pond. They found something a little bigger, again using the ID sheet they were able to work out that they had found a Dragonfly Nymph.
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.
Some children chose to collect different shaped and textured leaves. Then using paint they covered the leaf and printed it onto paper. They found out that this works best if you paint the underside of the leaf. Some were painted using one colour whereas others used lots of colours to create a rainbow effect.
Willows helped to put the slack line up today. They explained to Dormouse how it needed to be wrapped around the tree first and, with some help, they pulled it tight. Once it was up the whole class tried to balance on it. With so many children it became a little wobbly and tricky but they did all manage to stay on in the end.
