Today all the year 3 and 4 children from 3 different schools met for a Forest School adventure in the woods. They set off making their way across grass fields covered in frost and then along the forest way where the children spotted some spider webs sparkling in the sunshine as they were also coated with a layer of frost.
Once we were in the woods, we started with a tour of Forest School area to learn the boundaries and look at some of the activities waiting for the children to try, we also went over some safety rules for Forest School. The children were then divided into groups ready to set off to explore by themselves, all groups of children would then rotate round giving then all the opportunity to fire light and have s’mores, construct in the stream or have free time to explore for themselves.
At the fire circle the children had the opportunity to help light the fire using a flint and steel. They did this by scraping the flint and steel together to create a spark to light a piece of cotton wool, which would then be added to the fire in the centre of our fire circle. Quite a lot of the group found it a little tricky; however, they did not give up trying until they had managed to achieve that spark and light their cotton wool. It was great to see them encouraging each other to keep striking, and those that had already done it were giving advice to the children that were finding it a little trickier. The children watching would then cheer and clap when the person struggling finally lit the cotton wool!
With the fire now roaring away the children were able to come in a roast a marshmallow. Once it was looking nice and gooey and maybe a little charred around the edges the marshmallow was placed between two chocolate biscuits ready to be enjoyed.
There was a large lump of clay that the children could use to have a go at making some leaf prints by rolling over a leaf onto of some clay, then peeling it away to leave the impression of the leaf behind. However, the use of the clay went a very different way with the children creating some amazing things. We had mugs, a bowl with its own lid, a sheep and so much more. One child decided to recreate the stone picture she had on the group label: this was of many flat stone stacked on top of each other. She made many different sized balls of clay then flattened then before stacking them on top of each other in size order biggest to smallest.
With all the rain we have had there was a good flow of water making its way down the ditch that runs through Forest School. The children enjoyed sliding down the muddy banks into the water that they then waded through, mixing up the mud on the bottom of the ditch and turning the flowing water to a muddy brown colour.
