The last session of Forest School of the year brings a time of reflection. The whole class thought about their Forest School experience and its IMPACT on them this year. In small groups they chatted and recorded some of their ideas. 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.
Cherry Class then set off for the woods together on a sunny afternoon. On the walk to the woods the children collected samples of wildflowers and plants on sticky tape, they tried to create the colours of the rainbow. They talked about, buttercups, herb Robert, foxgloves, bracken, birds foot trefoil, clover, blue coloured speedwell and many, many more. They used some wild flower ID cards to help them to identify and learn new plants. Some of the plants in the meadows had grown so much since the last time we visited, and was taller than the children, but perfect to hide in and play a game of ‘Owl Eyes’ in. The class were excellent at disappearing into the long grasses and buttercups. Some children found some butterflies amongst the plants.
We took a jar of cream along the way to try to create butter, inspired by the buttercups. The children took it in turns to shake the jar furiously throughout the afternoon, noticing the change from liquid to solid and in the end it changed to make butter, which they tasted with crackers in the woods! It turns out the buttercups were correct- they do like butter!
The class all found 2 sticks and tapped out patterns and then sang a song together to start the woodland session. It was lovely to see how some of the children then used the sticks to create patterns on the floor and clear the leaf litter to draw with charcoal onto. There was time to create butterflies with paper and pastels. There was great care and consideration of detail in Cherry class’s drawings, with them taking care to try to make beautifully patterned symmetrical butterflies.
There was lots of time for independent play this week, with the children digging in the mud of the very dry stream, moving logs and sticks to make bridges and arrangements with sticks along the tree bank, looking out for dead or falling trees, swinging and spinning on the swing, looking for bugs on and under logs. They finished their afternoon with a ‘woodland whisper’- passing a word along the length of the class line through a whisper- This week they succeeded- Buttercups! Well done Cherry class and many thanks to our brilliant volunteers who enable our forest School sessions to run week after week.
