Winter Term - Tuesday 6th December

This week the children were keen to get onto our forest school site as quickly as possible to check if their den was still there. Some children were adamant the den would be gone but others were excited to continue working on it. Emilia had planned to decorate the den with leaves and make it look very pretty. We walked into our site and to our amazement, the den was still there exactly as we had left it! Emilia, Lottie and Iona got straight to work decorating their den with leaves. They carefully pushed the leaves onto the edge of the sticks and branches they had used to create their den. The varying Autumn coloured leaves made the den look truly beautiful!

Some of the other children had chosen to add to the den by balancing sticks vertically and horizontally. It was quite tricky as the ground was very uneven but with a little perseverance the children managed to make a rather exceptional den! Eventually the children all clambered inside for a group photo. Not only have the children worked really hard creating their den, they have also developed their communication skills through team work and compromise but also their physical skills in balancing, negotiating the woodland terrain and climbing skills to name a few.

Winter Term - Tuesday 29th November

This week the children took their time to head into the forest and helped to point out some of their forest school rules to one another. The children discussed how to walk down hills safely and then chose which route they would like to take. Some children bent their knees and walked straight down the hill, others side stepped whilst the remainder of the children shuffled down the hill on their bottom.

As we approached the ‘spooky steps’, the children remembered how to stay safe and decided to walk on the inside of the path. Well remembered safety rules by the forest schoolers! We then headed into our forest school site where the children sat on the hill for lunch. As we enjoyed our food, Tara spotted something moving in the bushes below us. What could it have been? We all sat quietly, waiting to see what it could be and to our surprise we spotted a small deer closely followed by a larger deer. They happily skipped past us and up onto the hill. The children and our grown up Hannah were so excited to see a deer so closely.

After lunch we decided to explore the space a little further and discovered a den. The children then decided they wanted to create their own den. Ted led the way and the den quickly began to take shape. The children worked together to move the sticks around to create the structure. Some sticks were even too heavy for the grown ups but with a little team work, we were able to move everything into the correct place.

Winter Term - Thursday 10th November

The children have been very busy learning all about their forest and the animals and plants which live there. We spotted oak and silver birch trees, squirrels, birds nests and mole hills. We walked along to the brown river where we discussed what sort of animals may live around us. We then talked about creating a dam to create a home for a beaver. The children immediately began to collect sticks, initially these were small, short sticks but very quickly the children realised that these sticks would not hold back the water to create a dam. What we needed was some huge branches!. The children set to work collecting some of the biggest branches they could find but they were very heavy and difficult to manoeuvre. The children needed help from one another. Team work makes the dream work! Working together, everyone helped to move the branches into position and our dam was built. We stood back and admired our skills. It truly was the most magnificent dam!

Winter Term - Thursday 3rd November 2022

Today the children enjoyed another trip to forest school. As a group we discussed the weather and what we would need for our day. We ensured we had a warm coat, gloves and hat as we prepared for a chilly day. As we headed to our site the children talked about what they might see. We spotted a birds nest and this discussion led us to think about the different types of animals who live in our forest. We spotted squirrels and learned about their homes and we even visited a badger sett!

We had heard a lot of rumours about a magical river so after listening very carefully for the sound of water, we followed our listening ears until we found a small stone bridge. To our amazement, an orangery brown river ran alongside it which was very smelly! We then headed up the wooden stairs before navigating the jungle area of our forest school. The children were amazed by the space and thought they might spot elephants or tigers. Sadly we didn’t but we did stand on the top of the biggest mountain we had ever seen and looked out where we could see just how big our forest school site is. We really wanted to spot some of the deer we share our site with but instead we spotted many squirrels. They enjoyed demonstrating their acrobatic skills, jumping from one branch to another and hanging upside down.

We enjoyed eating our lunch at the top of the mountain before heading back. On our way back we met flossy, a beautiful dog who loves treats (and children). She gave the children her paw and we fed her dog biscuits. We wanted to stay a little longer but it was time to head back. We are looking forward to reindeer spotting next week!

Spring Term - Tuesday 7th June 2022

Today the children have been very busy exploring the park. We were all amazed by how long the grass was and at how many flowers had grown. We spotted lots of buttercups, daisies and cow parsley. One child found a very tall buttercup. It was even tall enough for him to smell it standing up!

The other children continued to add to the fairy house they had created the week previously. They were amazed it hadn’t blown down. “Let’s see if we can blow it down” suggested one child. The children huffed and puffed but they couldn’t blow down the little house of sticks. We decided to hold an experiment to work out why the house would not blow down. We pushed a stick firmly into the ground and tried to blow it down. Jenny pointed out that we couldn’t blow it down because it was to far down into the ground. We tried it again but this time didn’t push the stick as far into the ground. Again, we attempted to blow down the stick but it would not budge. Jenny picked up the stick and pushed it down into a softer part of the ground and explained “its because the soil is too hard there and you need softer soil and not too deep and then it will blow down”. Sure enough, the children blew and down blew the stick! What an experiment!

A big interest today was fire! The children decided to build their own fires using lots of broken sticks lying around park. They sprinkled yellowing leaves across the top of the sticks which acted as flames. Toby pointed out that they needed to rub two sticks together to create a spark for their fire. He got to work collecting two large sticks which he began rubbing together. “There you go!” declared Toby once he had lit the fire with his sticks.

Spring Term - 31st May 2022 (afternoon session)

Our afternoon session was definitely going to be an interesting one! We all dressed ready for the weather in welly boots and waterproofs and braved the rain. On entering the park, the children were immediately drawn to several different small puddles which they enjoyed plodging in.

We decided to venture further into the park to look for bigger puddles. On approaching a corner of the park we were confronted by the largest puddle any of us had ever seen. We stood around the puddle, poised ready to jump. After a “1, 2, 3” we all jumped into the puddle. Everyone smiled and giggled as the water shot up and splashed us all in the face. Smiles and shrieks of delight all round.

The children then decided to experiment with different ways of moving through the puddle. Can we roll? Can we roly poly? Can we run? There was only one way to find out. We needed to try and try we did. We explored different ways off moving through the puddle but at the end, we decided that splashing was simply the most fun! The rain and the cold were not going to make us stop but soon it was time to return to nursery and get warmed up with a delicious tea. What a fun day we had all had! We are hopeful it will rain next week too!

Spring Term - Tuesday 31st May 2022 (morning session)

As we arrived in the park, the children were very excited and immediately wanted to explore. We spotted something on the ground, it was a small green plant but Tara pointed out that this was something even more special! It was a sapling! But what type of sapling could it be? We looked at the characteristics of the sapling and we thought it looked like long green fingers. Immediately the children recognised what is was… it was a horse chestnut tree! The children looked around and found several more growing below a huge conker tree.

As we walked around looking for more saplings, the children found an abundance of broken branches and sticks. Where had they all come from? One of the children decided she wanted to build a small house for a squirrel and alongside several of her friends, they began to lie sticks against a tree to create the structure. Another child found brightly coloured leaves and flowers which would act as the carpet and decorations. The squirrel home soon changed and became a home for tree fairies who no longer had a branch to sit on. The girls decorated the whole house with flowers and it really did look fit for a fairy!

“We need to use a leaf for the mat so the fairies can wipe their feet” - Jenny

“But fairies fly so they don’t have dirty feet’’ - Alice

As one group of children built their fairy home, another group of children were attempting to place a broken branch back into the ground so it could regrow. This was a very tricky thing to do! The children initially began to place sticks into the ground and using them like a screwdriver, attempted to churn out soil to create a hole. The children soon found that this would not work for such a long branch. They decided to then attempt to pack the bottom of the branch with soil and sticks to help support it to stand. With a lot of hard work they managed to achieve this and were so proud of themselves when their tree branch stood upright independently. But how long would it last? Unfortunately we soon learned that trees require roots to stabilise them as the branch fell down. Never mind, we still had a full afternoon to enjoy and the sky was beginning to turn a dark grey colour. This could only mean one thing…we may be getting wet!

Spring Term - Tuesday 24th May 2022

Before heading into our forest, the children recapped on what they wanted to do at forest school that week. Everyone had remembered our plans to visit the river however a few of the specific details had changed. Now instead of plodging with our welly boots on we were going fishing, going for a swim and splashing in the water. Luckily, everyone had brought spare clothes and towels with them so we were ready for a wet day and a wet day is just what we got! The spring sun shone as the children leapt and ran in the meadow on the way to our site. The sun shone again when we sat for our lunch and just as we finished and headed into the river, it began to rain. Not just a little shower of rain but a huge downpour! The children (and adults) did not mind at all and we walked and splashed our feet in the river, traversed the tyre bridge, clung to tree trunks as we meandered along the outskirts of the river, crossed the muddy island (avoiding the really super squelchy mud!) and eventually splashing in the deep water of the river as the rain dripped down around us. Everyone was wet but no one cared. We headed back to the ‘big shed’ where we dried off and had some yummy scones and drinks. We then had enough time to survey our new ponds and spot some tadpoles. We checked out our poly tunnel and everyone was amazed at our plants, flowers and vegetables.

Spring Term - Tuesday 17th May 2022

We started our day by walking down the lane towards our forest school site. Freddie spotted a construction vehicle and immediately identified it as a telescopic handler. A builder spotted us looking at the vehicle and explained it’s job and confirmed it was in fact a telescopic handler (and also a forklift truck)!

We continued on our route and listened to the sound of bird song as we made our way into the forest. We spotted lots of signs of life from blossom on the trees to bluebells and some animals trails. The first trail we found was a parting in the grass and a large hole into the bushes. We talked about what kind of animal may have made this trail. We finally decided it could have been a fox. We spotted another trail but this one was larger and more like a path. Rupert identified that the path had been created by a human! Yes, it was us!

We found the sneaky staircase and followed it all the way to the path. We were surprised by the changes in the woodland. We talked about why the forest had grown so much. We thought maybe the sun, soil, air, rain and time of year had something to do with it. We then had a decision to make as we approached a fork in the path. Do we go left, right or straight ahead? The children voted and straight ahead was the decision. We had never ventured along this path before. We soon realised this path was taking us higher and higher up into the hill. We navigated steep steps, stinging nettles and fallen branches to reach the peak. We looked down at the vast wilderness below and were amazed that all of the space was ours to explore. We climbed further up the hills until we found a familiar spot. It was our hill covered in beautiful bluebells and pink flowers. We spent lots of time here climbing, scaling the hill, building a fire (a pretend one of course!), bouncing on tree branches, discovering Superworm and identifying letters which had been carved onto a piece of wood. “Look, it’s a M for Mummy!”.

After lunch we ventured down the hill and into our original forest school site. We were amazed to find a den we had built many months prior had now been swallowed up by nettles and other plants. The children felt a little sad as we were now unable to play in our den. We needed to find a new spot to build the best den ever! We began searching and found a fantastic place to explore beside the river. Unfortunately we ran out of time and needed to head back to nursery but we are very excited for next week’s adventures.

Spring Term - Thursday 17th March 2022

This week we decided to go on another adventure in our forest school. We came to a fork in the path and as a group we talked about which way we should go. Should we venture into a part of the woodland we had previously explored or head on to explore a new area? We decided to head to the new area of the forest. We discovered long sticks on the ground, a spooky den and a huge stone which was amazing for climbing. It was a little slippy but everyone worked together to support one another.

We walked up high into the mountains of our forest before discovering the orange river we know so well. From here we were able to track our way back to the minibus and nursery.

Spring Term - Thursday 10th March 2022

This week at forest school we walked along to our orange river. The children have been fascinated by the colour of this part of the river for weeks now and today we decided to engage in some scientific exploration. The children thought about what colour the water was and why. There was a lot of different theories, maybe someone had put food colouring into the river, paint was another guess and carrots another. We all guessed if we took some water out of the river, it would be orange but to our surprise it was ‘water colour’ as one child put it. This truly astounded the children. We knew we had more research to take part in.

As we walked deeper into our forest, we found a huge fallen tree which the children enjoyed navigating. We tried different ways of moving around, over and under the tree.

Spring Term - Thursday 3rd March

This week we explored a forest school a little closer to nursery. We enjoyed moving through the bushes looking for the wild animals which may be living around us. Would we spot a deer, a bear or maybe a tiger? Lucky for us we spotted lots of bird and met some very friendly dogs (one of which decided he would rather stay with us then his own grown up). We spotted some beautiful white feathers and decided to follow the trails to discover who they may belong to. We spotted a pigeon, a white duck and a swan. We wondered which one of these animals the feather may belong to.

In the woodland, we created a story circle to celebrate ‘World Book Day’. We laid out sticks in a circle shape and stood around it. We worked together to create our own story by giving one sentence each. Our story featured a grumpy crocodile which everyone thought was hilarious!

Spring Term - Thursday 24th February 2022

Today we enjoyed a trip to our forest school. We discussed what we would do that day and the children were excited about visiting the site, climb trees and mountains and go on an adventure! This week we were taking a new grown up with us, Adaline from baby unit! The children ensured that Adaline knew how to be safe in the forest by demonstrating how to cross the road sensibly, they explained why we always leave berries on the tree and how we stand to stand to the side to allow dogs and their owners to pass us.

When we arrived on our site we looked around and found the den which the last forests schoolers had created. This group of children decided they wanted to cross the super swamp and head up onto the mountain. We carefully crossed our tree bridge and headed up the steep slope. We found a great tree for climbing and everyone took it in turns to negotiate the tree and get down safely. We then headed further into the forest where we slid down hills on our bottoms, climbed steep mountains, negotiated small pathways, met some friendly dogs, discovered an orange river and admired the view from the best position, on top of the world!

Winter Term - Tuesday 15th February 2022

This week the children were very excited as it was fire week! As usual the children had previously discussed what they would like to cook on the fire. We agreed on starters of bruschetta, a main of vegetable stir fry and to finish bananas and custard! Yummy! After lunch we still had lots of time to head into forest school and explore. We headed across the meadow where we were all free to run in the huge expanse of space. As we explored, we were reminded of the witch we heard last week. We found witch tracks on the ground and decided to follow them. We then heard the witches cackle! What should we do? We headed deeper into forest school where we found a tree which had blown down and twisted. Kirsty directed us to a safe route so we could get back to the minibus and away from the forest witch!

Winter Term - Tuesday 8th February 2022

What a busy day we had at forest school today. As we headed down into the forest we chatted about our den. Would it still be there or could the storm have blown it down? As we approached our site, one of the children shouted “It’s alive!”. Everyone was so excited to see that our den had survived. “Our magic fingers must have worked” shouted Rupert.

We began to add to our den whilst some children helped to build a shelter to keep us warm and dry. The children decided to create a fire pit, chairs and tables to make their den even better! After lunch we continue with our building work, carrying branches back and forth and even making a trap!

Winter Term - Tuesday 1st February 2022

As we headed to forest school we were aware the wind could make our day problematic. When we arrived the wind was quite strong so we discussed together how safe it would be to venture into forest school. We decided that the way to keep everyone safe was to spend our day on the allotment. We had lots of jobs to do as we had not been to our allotment over the winter period. We began by moving compost into our new beds and weeding our existing ones. We then moved our rhubarb patch into it’s new home and then finished our day by using our wheelbarrows to carry bark from the top of the hill down into our allotment. What a busy day we had had. We thought about the den we made last week in forest school. Would it be there next week? We weren’t so sure as the wind had done a lot of damage. Let’s see what next week brings!

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Winter Term - Tuesday 25th January 2022

This week we decided to walk down to our forest school site as quickly as possible to ensure we could make the most of our time there. We passed lots of dogs on our way and the children remembered to stand to the side to allow them to pass us safely. As we continued our walk we spotted lots of birds and nests which the children were very excited about. Preschool had been discussing the big bird watch at nursery and how they could get involved.

After lunch we decided to build the biggest den we could. We found lots of long branches which we worked together to carry and put into place to create a dome structure. We then added dried grass as a roof and even found an old brick which was converted into a television. We are looking forward to adding to our den next week. We were a little worried the wind might knock over our den but we won’t know until next week so watch this space!

Our den

Winter Term - Tuesday 11th January 2022

Today was our first trip back to forest school this year. It was quite a cold day so we wrapped up nice and warm before venturing out to the woodland. On our way we talked about what we may see on our adventures. Almost immediately after our conversation, we heard a quacking noise before spotting four ducks who were happily waddling around. We then spotted two friendly dogs, a squirrel and lots of birds. We spotted the biggest dog we have ever seen before. IT WAS HUGE! We asked the dogs owner what type of dog it was to which she answered, “He is a Boerboel”.

As we headed further into the woodland we found some areas to climb and jump. Some children decided to jump over the small ditch along the path whilst others attempted to use the hanging vines to climb higher and higher up the hill. It was very tricky as the soil was loose. Using the vines and low hanging branches the children managed to negotiate a route. Rupert even made it all the way to the top!

Winter Term - Tuesday 14th December

Our last forest school session before Christmas had arrived. The children were very excited for fire week where we cook our meals on the open fire. The meal of choice was jacket potatoes, beans and cheese with our favourite dessert of pancakes, chocolate and strawberries (these really are simply delicious!). 

We talked about how to stay safe around the fire and after a late start to our day we got to work immediately constructing our fire. We knew we needed kindling but what else would we need? Whilst lunch was cooking, Angela began to prepare our Kelly kettle for a very festive treat – hot chocolate and marshmallows! The children sat back in amazement as the fire burned out of the top of our Kelly kettle. We talked about the differences between smoke and steam and what we should do if the smoke moved towards our eyes. 

After a warm drink our lunch was ready. It was very tasty and before we knew it our pancakes were ready too! We were so surprised at how quickly our fire had cooked everything and that meant we still had lots of time to explore our forest school. One child wanted to visit the horses who live in the meadow so we headed down the lane and across the field where we counted five horses. We then headed down a deep ravine into the woodland. There were lots of steps to walk down but the children were very aware of how to keep themselves safe. As we continued along the path, we encountered a problem. A huge tree had fallen across the path and we were unable to continue any further. Ruby suggested we climb over it. We discussed it and decided we would give it a try. We all negotiated a pathway around, under or over to move past the tree and everyone was amazed at their achievement! We continued and found more trees which had fallen but these were safe enough to climb on and try to balance. We also found a hollow tree which was great for hiding in. As the day ended the children sang Christmas songs all the way back to nursery. What a fun and festive forest school day!

Autumn Term - Tuesday 30th November 2021

Once we arrived at forest school, we talked about Storm Arwen and the damage it may have caused on our site. We also discussed the hidden dangers which may be present such as fallen or snapped branches above us. The children looked around as they moved through our site and pointed out areas which they felt may be dangerous or had created challenges for us. We found lots of broken branches on the ground and some trees which had been blown over in the wake of the storm. One child decided that we could push the tree to an upright position if we all worked together. Everyone lined up along the tree and attempted to push it back up into a standing position but unfortunately the tree was too heavy for us. We even found some large rocks which the children believed had been blown down the hill. The children attempted to push these back up the hill but they were just too heavy! 

As we continued our journey through the woodland, we spotted something lurking in the bushes. We looked closely and spotted a deer! But not just one deer, it was a family of deer! The children were amazed! We found a small clearing where we continued to look for the deer but sadly were unable to spot them. We did however spot a huge ditch which some of the children enjoyed jumping across. The children enjoyed discovering different ways to move over the ditch and helped support one another with encouraging words.