The year ones have had a great start to their Forest School sessions, during the first few weeks we focus on how to keep ourselves safe, how to keep others safe and how to keep nature safe. Between us we discuss many scenarios where the children contributed and demonstrate to the group.  The children have been extremely enthusiastic and have fully embraced the games and activities that have been on offer.  This term the children have listened to folk tales on birds such as the Wood pecker, Robin and House Sparrow, these stories have acted as a ‘springboard’ to their child-led play and through games and activities on offer, the children have learnt that its quite tricky to find food in winter and how camouflage helps with ‘worms’ hiding in grass and how hard it is to catch and eat their food just with a beak!  They enjoyed playing predator and prey games and thought about food chains, they’ve listens to the birds, and turned this into a game, they’ve acted as starlings and tried flying as a murmuration. They’ve had time to sit quietly and listen to the birds and trying to count how many different sounds they can hear. It’s been lovely to see the children spend time with the binoculars bird watching or making natural bird feeders using pine cones and sticks to hang on the trees.  Some children have spent time creating art from the Christmas trees, or using the needles as an essential ingredient in a mud kitchen recipe. The den building has taken off and the children now have an amazing structure up a tree, (build by the year 5’s) which each week is added too! The dig pit has been extended and the year 1’s added a structure to make a camp, where they have been trading pine cones along with any other treasures they have found.  The hammocks and slack lines are in constant use and many children persevering to get across without falling off.   As you are aware the children have loved the opportunity to use the mud slide, which I know despite over trousers they are still rather muddy, please can I assure you that whilst they are ‘playing’ the children are, improving social skills, cooperating, turn taking, persevering, risk assessing, using trial and error in how to make themselves slide faster. With the addition of water, figuring out how to transport it working as team and creating a truly magnificent slide!

We ended Term 3 with fire lighting, each of the children had the opportunity to use the flint & steels to light cotton wool. On the communal fire they cooked bread and as a group we made fresh butter.

Although at the time of writing it feels like Spring is on its way, please keep an eye on the weather and ensure the children are wrapped up warmly!