This week at Forest School we focussed on history, geography and science curriculum links during our walk to the woods. The class talked about the railway line and went to show Mrs Surtees where the old station was in Hartfield.
The Scientific Skills Willow have been gaining this term are to:
- Recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways
- Explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment
- Recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.
The Forest School experience supports the acquisition of their scientific skills each and every session and the recent weather and the season helped support these skills today.
Each child had a stick for the journey and tried to collect as many different leaves, both shape, type and colour, to learn how to identify leaves and trees as they went. They found some ‘oak galls’ created by gall wasps laying eggs. We had a look inside one gall and found a grub and then collected lots of oak galls, to dry out and try to make ink from them as they did in the middle ages.
The recent rain had made the meadows extremely muddy, making it potentially unsafe and too slippery underfoot, so Willow took another path to the woods and talked about the history of the railway line and the animals that might live along the Forest Way, after looking at the information sign on the track.
They had a look at the height of the river Medway to see the effect of the recent rains and how rivers and flood plains react to weather.
In the woods the children explored their own interests in the woods, exploring the site, the rope swings, digging in the wet ground and seeing how the flow of water could be diverted by them in the stream.
They balanced brilliantly on the slack line with sticks, build a den shelter with pegs and tarps and made some fantastic ‘beezum’ brushes from silver birch branches, as people did in the past..
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.
