It was another cold and frosty afternoon as Willow walked to the woods. They shared details of the ‘Welly Walk’ they had been on yesterday. The children were particularly excited by the ice; noticing icicles, frozen puddles and ice crystals on lots of the grass, plants and trees. There was lots of enjoyment and satisfaction with treading on frozen patches and listening to the sounds of the frozen ground and ice breaking.
This term Willow Class’ learning journey is all about Roald Dahl, so we started the afternoon with a story; ‘Billy and the Minpins’. It is about Billy exploring the deep dark woods and discovering creatures living in the trees. The children looked and listened to the woodland environment around them as they listened to the story, to enrich their imagination.
Then the children then used the story as inspiration for creative play and had a go at creating characters with small hazel sticks. They went off around the woodland to create houses and villages for their characters to live. The children used natural materials they had found; bark, lichen, fungi, logs, moss, leaves and sticks. Some even made some signs for their houses.
In the woods the children explored their own interests in the woods, exploring the site, the rope swings, digging in the stream and seeing how the flow of water could be diverted and how and where it disappeared into the woodland floor. There was great interest in exploring what they could find in the stream, mud, clay, leaves, stones and tree roots were uncovered today.
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.
