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.

Woodland Robots

The new Cornerstones topics take off again as a new half term starts . Year 4 have a fantastic day ahead with one of the real robots from Robot Wars coming in and a series of lessons based around this.

In Forest School we began by discovering some facts about robots using our True and False trees.

True or False: The first humanoid robot was built in 1939 and could speak 700 words.

Then it came to thinking about robots we would want to protect our woodlands, lots of ideas here. The children split themselves into groups and went off collecting materials to make their robots.

But just what do they do? Here are the children's explanations...

Here we go again!

I can't believe it's nearly half term and I haven't written anything up for the blog. Much now comes across on a daily basis via the school twitter and audioboo accounts.

The year got off to an exciting start with a return to Spy Camp for Year 6.

All ready in the sunshine for Spy Camp briefing.
A range of task to be completed and points to be gained.

Laser Lines: Here the children had to follow a route through a laser primed room ensuring that they did not touch or break the beam.

The Slackline tested children's bravery, balance and agility.

Tree climbing for those who would dare.

Can you see me? Creating camouflage to keep us hidden when out in the field.  

 Some sticks, string, and a flag but how do you make it stand up?
















Shelter building: will this keep you hidden and dry overnight?











Other skills included putting up a hammock and the water challenge. By the end of the two sessions all the points were tallied and the winning team was ....

So the children were all prepared for their reading of Stormbreaker and meeting Alex Rider.
Later on in the term the children returned to solve the mystery of the missing secret agent. More of that later.