Today Willows Class started their session by going to their garden patch to look at the daffodils they had planted. They counted 3 that were flowering and noticed that there were more which were dying because they had already flowered. Then they each threw in the ‘seed bombs’ they had made out of clay, mud and lots of calendula seeds.
“They are a sphere shape”
“Yeah, when you flatten it, it will be a circle!”
“I think the flowers will look beautiful”
“Then we can get more seeds from the flowers next year to grow some more”
We went to the field and played a brilliant game of ‘Beetle Tag’. The children all pretended to be beetles and scurried around, trying to run away from the birds who were trying to ‘tag’ them. When the beetles 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 really great at noticing which ‘beetles’ needed to be rescued. Well done Willows!
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 as well as the skills involved in learning how to play Forest School Games.
This week the Willows learned to make a fire and how to be safe around the fire. They practised being ‘Green Dragons’ by switching log seats and walking around the edge of the circle to be safe. They worked as a team, using their understanding of size and measure, to sort sticks into different thicknesses. In turns they put them into the bowl to build a fire with the large sticks at the bottom, building up to the smallest.
They talked about how they could tell which way the wind was blowing by noticing the wood smoke flowing in a particular direction.
Then the children went on to learn about different flowers on the Forest School site by collecting them and printing onto fabric using hammers.
Lots of the children spent time playing in the den which is evolving in the wild area of our site. They loved the tyre swing and the hammock, working on their vestibular and gross motor control development.
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.
Each child took it in turns to share and listen to what they had enjoyed about the afternoon.
“I liked banging the leaves with the hammers”
“I liked the woods and the fire”
“I liked the game, It was fun being a beetle”
