Forest Schools

Fairy Nice Toasties

There have been some welcome changes at the Forest School site.  A new water butt has been added (thank you Mr Woods) and even more exciting a new toastie maker has been bought (thank you PTA).  This means we can have water for gardening and art work whenever we need it but more importantly we can make delicious cheese toasties! While the adults were busy making them the children were working in small teams to help the fairies rebuild their village after the recent storms. They showed amazing team skills and creativity. Look at their wonderful creations!

'Bloblet please'.

We were all delighted to see the first signs of Spring.  The birds were singing, the flowers blossoming and the weather warmer.  To help Mother Nature we planted flowers seeds in pots and baskets and put them around Metapic Wood to water and weed in the coming weeks.  We helped make omlettes (or Bloblets as Lyla calls them) and they were delicious and we rolled the new water butt up the hill ready for it to be put in place.                                                

Soup of the Day

The warriors had a very busy day in the woods. As well as peeling and chopping vegetables for their soup, they made clay soup bowls for the fairies, helped Don cut branches damaged in the storm and looked at the world upside down!

Pancake Day in the Woods

It's the Y1's turn for Forest School  and what better topic to have than food.  This means lots of cooking over the fire!  We started our weekly feasts with pancakes to celebrate Shrove Tuesday.    While the children made their own mud pancakes the adults prepared real ones over the fire.             

Waterproof shelters, jacket spuds and marshmallow hedgehogs!

It was the final forest school session today and the weather was beautiful. We could take our coats off!  We finished our weather topic by making little tinfoil people and experimenting with a variety of materials to find the best waterproof shelter.     

After all this hard work we enjoyed a feast of jacket potatoes and marshmallows that we shaped like little hedgehogs.

The Crow’s Tale

As part of our weather topic and multicultural week we read the Native American story of the crow who lost his colourful feathers because of the sun’s heat. It is a tale of bravery and kindness, which describes our wonderful woodland warriors. Using the crows lost colours they created beautiful wind chimes and a fantastic colourful shelter.

Sarah Keogh from Derbyshire County Council came to see the warriors in action and support them with their tool work.

Tornado in January

As part of our weather topic the children were asked to make a tornado in a bottle. 

It was a very cold, frosty morning and the children enjoyed lying down and watching the birds. We saw lots of robins and blue tits.

Go fly a kite

The challenge this week was to make a kite with two twigs, newspaper and string. The children did a great job using their lashing skills.  Shame there was no wind!

The year 2 children had their first go on the tightrope and were very good!

Whatever the weather!

Year 2 completed a series of weather related tasks at forest school today. They were weather detectives and used magnifying glasses to look for evidence of as many different types of weather as they could.  They found snow, rain and sun all in one day!

To help us investigate more, we made weather vanes and used compasses to help us learn which direction the wind was blowing from.  The forest ranger, Dom, taught us how to use the sun to find north!  

Winter Wonderland

Year 1 children were delighted to find a Christmas tree with a bag of decorations (specially planted for them by Andy, the Metapic Wood owner). 

They made bird feeder decorations to add to the tree. 

Meanwhile Miss Vicky and Miss Marples were busy opening a tin of beans with an axe and cooking a feast over the fire. 

The children are impressing the staff with their fantastic attitude, resilience, team spirit and sense of fun.  It is great to see dirty faces and ruddy cheeks.

Getting ready for winter

The children prepared for winter with hats and gloves today.  Some of them wore the hand knitted animal mittens and hats from Joanne Roe. They happily put up with the colder weather to help make Hogitats for our hibernating hedgehogs and learnt about what to feed our prickly friends. Dog food!

Y1’s first forest school session

Staff were amazed at how quickly y1 children settled down to their forest school session, showing amazing stamina on this physically tiring afternoon. They are already beginning to show resilience and support each other.  They learnt about hibernating hedgehogs and practised their balancing skills on the new tightrope. 

Team challenges!

The children were set on team challenges to save Jack from the Giant and to help build the villagers homes including bathrooms and stables. They set to work making pulleys and using all the skills they had learnt in knot tying.  

Fires and tools.

Over the past two weeks, the year 2 children have been involved in using tools and making fires to support their forest school learning. They have all been very responsible and trustworthy and have learnt to work as a team and take care of each other.  We used bow saws to cut wood, peelers to make shavings. 

We used a fire steel to start a fire. We learnt the safety rules for these tasks. 

Forest School September 2018

Back to school and Forest School is in full swing.  This week we had a challenge to turn 2 sticks and 2 pieces of string into a trapdoor  to catch the naughty Leprachaun who lives in the woods.   We learnt how to make a slip knot for a snare trap and we found a skull from a small mammal (any ideas what animal it is?).