This Week in Forest School

Here are some pictures of what we have been getting up to this week in Forest School.

The Time Machine

Nature's Wonder

Year 4 have been out and about with their iPods looking for inspiration in nature and this is the result.

New Colours

Thanks to Fagley Forest School we now have some wonderful new waterproof clothing from WaterProofWorld. The colours have definitely made it much easier for children to find the right size clothing, using a measure on the door to check their height. And of course the less time spent changing the more time we have outdoors!

Story Totems

Children in our Cognitive Learning Unit have a weekly Forest School lesson and this week they were exploring the story of The Hare and the Tortoise.

Children decided to work in pairs and went searching for a suitable stick to put in the ground using a mallet.

Clay was available to create the characters from the story.

Children collected bits and pieces to enhance their story Totems.

Finally their Totems were completed.

And of course in the damp weather there was always a little bit of time for snail hunting.

Making Chairs with Year 6

The challenge is to make a chair that you can sit on. You will need to use your knotting skills, design skills and creativity. Of course you can only use materials that you find on the site. So what will you come up with?

This activity was aimed at using and applying skills gained over a series of Forest School lessons.

The lesson had quite a tight time constraint on it and given that the children worked remarkably well.

Some children wanted to stabilize their chairs by pushing their chair legs into the ground. All the recent rain made this a fairly easy task. But making the structure stable was still quite a challenge and while some opted for the easier solution of using logs when all else failed many persisted to achieve a stable structure.

One clever design used the Tepee design made when in Year 4 and added three seats to it.

Here are some of their designs:-

                   

Forest School Photography

Using the iPod and Snapseed  app has allowed children in Year 6 to experiment with creating artwork in Forest School as part of their Cornerstones Galleries project. Here is a short video to showcase some of their work.

The Magic of Christmas

Imagine sitting out in Forest School on a cold winter day when in the distance the sound of sleigh bells is heard. The children in their excitement rush over to see who it is and all that is left in the ivy is a letter.

The letter is plucked from the ivy and enthusiastically the children, upon seeing that the letter is addressed to them, pull the letter open to find a message from Father Christmas.

The excitement grows as one of the children reads out the message which goes something like this:-

The children quickly make the task clear in their minds and split in to small groups and dash off to find a tree and collect materials to start building. Much negotiation, planning evaluating, designing and making takes place as the children come up with all sorts of ideas for their houses.

Floor plan completed

Leaves on the roof

A pathway leading to the house

 While the children are building there is the opportunity to speak to Father Christmas to tell him about all their ideas.

listen to ‘elf houses 3c’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Message for Father Christmas’ on Audioboo

listen to ‘Hello Santa from3j’ on Audioboo

Late last night I was sure I saw a sleigh fly past and magic fairy dust covered the site.
Now we know next year little elves will be living among us.