Today Maple Class spent time kicking leaves and noticing the changes that had been occurring around them as Autumn develops.
The children remember the walk to the woods really well, recalling which landmarks and features of the landscape to notice and remember.
“There are hawthorn berries here, they are still growing”
“There is a ‘W’ on the post, it is ‘W’ for waiting and walking”
“The bridge is next…but look, the sheep have gone from the field”
Once in the woods Maple Class worked brilliantly to go and collect wood to prepare for our whole school day in the woods today to celebrate bonfire night.
They talked about different sizes and lengths of sticks and sorted them into sizes. The children shared their knowledge of what wood was good for burning.
“ It should be dead”
“ If it is fallen on the ground it will be good”
“It might be rotten”
“if it had leaves on it, it is still alive, so is not good for burning”
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.
The children are developing their skills of following and understanding rhythms as they tapped sticks when they got to the woods.
They then helped to build the bonfire for the whole school session tomorrow.
The children enjoyed the mud which had been created by the recent rain in the stream and were very good at independent hand washing afterwards!
They spent a long time at the stream climbing up and down and sorting out how to make the bridge more stable.
We played a game of 1,2,3 change tree again, where everyone had to spot a new tree to run to in the woods and get there before the countdown ended!
It was great to notice the development of their early mathematics skills, as they counted down how long they had to run and counted how many children were left in the game as it continued.
There was time for a blindfold listening game of ‘Drum stalking’, using their sense of hearing to follow the sounds around the woodland.
A massive thanks to our volunteers who supported the children with all of their exploring and learning. We can’t wait until tomorrow for the bonfire!
