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 parents came to school to join the class for lunchtime. It was great for the children to have them there to share their lunchtime and see them in their classroom and help them to get ready and prepare to go to Forest School.
The sun shone and it was a chilly but gorgeously bright autumn day.
The children showed the impact of learning mathematical vocabulary by measuring the Wellingtonia tree. They circled it by holding hands, and looked at how high it was. They then compared the size and height of the tree to others on the journey to the woods.
It has rained so much in recent weeks, so the children had a fantastic time exploring and discussing the muddy and water sodden ground. Their enjoyment of the sensory experience of being in squidgy ground and small streams was evident in the goggles and laughing and joking about getting stuck. They talked at length to each other about how deep the water was and how there was lots of little streams that hadn’t been there last time they went to the woods.
A little robin came to watch the children as we paused for a rest along the way. The children also saw a squirrel as it scampered up a tree on one side of the railway line. They talked about how in the past, the path was a real railway line and how some of the children had been at playschool in the old station building before they came to school.
The impact of the environment was evident on the children’s risk taking and personal challenge skills as they navigated styles and clambered onto a large tree stump and gates.
The children looked at a 200 year old fallen tree at the Forest School site and noticed all of the fallen branches and sticks. They explained to their parents that they needed to collect 2 sticks to start our Forest School circle and sang them a song.
We played a game of ‘duck, duck, dragon’ to learn how to stay safe around the fire circle, before learning how to use flint and steels to light a fire to stay warm on such a cold day.
Once the fire was going the children set off to explore the woods, challenging themselves to have a go at climbing trees, swinging, taking turns and trying out the slack line.
They worked together to lift and move a log, to make a mark on the woodland floor to stay safe and wait behind as they waited for their turn on the swing.
We then went off to search out the stream and had a look at the bridges across the stream.
There was time to warm ourselves round the fire and have a little snack, learning to wash our hands in cold water outside beforehand. We thought how lucky we were with the weather, as homeward bound, the rain started to fall on us.
A massive thank you to our parents for coming to support the children during their session.
