We all arrived safely either by car or on the coach. After a quick safety chat we split into 2 groups and our group headed towards the tractor ride. It was very bumpy and lots of fun. We had some free time to look at the reptiles and feed the animals. The goats were particularly hungry. In the shed we found sheep, piglets, rabbits, hens and alpaca’s.

Our next activity was to make some bread rolls. We were told all about the ingredients and how to knead it and we made lots of different shapes for our rolls. Later we were able to take them home to eat.

After a much-earned lunch it was more free time to play on the bouncy pillow (this included Lisa) or try the zip wire.

We left Barleyland’s after an amazing fun filled day.

Forest school week 19th June.

This week’s session was a bit hit and misses as to what the weather was going to do. We managed to go ahead as the weather held off. I had planned the session around the weather as it was raining first thing so we only set up shelters and the resource pockets. We decided to take the children that we had in for a walk around the woods to see what different trees and birds we could see, the children led the way we saw the calved dormouse, some blackberries beginning to grow, some mushrooms that we must not touch and eventually we found the horse in the field!. When we got back we had snack and then the children worked well together to build up the den some more they used the big logs which were dragged forest school way. The final result was very pleasing!!

Forest School week 5 final sessions.

So it was the last sessions of the first group of children this week which is really sad as they have gained so much from coming regularly into the woods (and we don’t mean the gnat bites!). We were very lucky to only have one wet session in this block.

So this week being our last week we did some more basic tool work again, we made wooden caterpillars because we have been seeing a lot of them during our sessions. We were very excited for our carers to join us for snack and to show them around our forest school are. We had a clack line, rope swing, climbing tree, bug hunting, mud painting, mud kitchen and everything our imagination came up with! Conker Chris was very sad to say goodbye to her first group of children but is very excited to welcome the new children next term.

Forest school blog week 1.

Conker Chris was very excited to welcome the new group of children to forest school.

The weather forecast wasn’t great for the day so the area was set up in preparation for rain. The very excited children were met and we walked to our forest school camp the children were so excited so ran along the path looking for our pink ribbon tree, when we arrived at camp we put our bags at the bag tree and sat in our log circle to go through the forest school rules and talk about our boundaries, the children just wanted to go and explore so we walked around and looked at the activities that were set out for them.

After we had finished our walk round and going through the rules the children went straight to the climbing tree, they enjoyed digging mud for their kitchen; bug hunting was an activity that all the children liked to do tighter although all the bugs seemed to be hiding. During snack time conker Chris read us a story which helped the children use a stick in a different way. We done lots more climbing in the tree and of course more bug hunting before we had to walk back to go home. We are already looking forward to lots more fun next week!!

Wow what a difference the weather was for our Wednesday session lovely sunny weather. The children were so excited to get into the woods and get started. During our walk along the path the children have started noticing more things around them, some of the children were hugging the trees they started with big ones then tried to find smaller ones that they could reach write around to working together to hold around tree. When we got to the forest school children routine is fully ordered now, putting their bags down, finding their names an getting ready for the talking stick. The children were very excited to find the surprise of rope swing for the Wednesday group and the slack line for the Friday group! They enjoyed digging for mud to use for the mud painting The rope activities children where left to compile their own risk assessments, forest school is all about risk assessing and turn taking without adult support, the children have really started to learn boundaries within the forest school with very little or no adult guidance. The activity this week was wooden necklaces the children used basic tools to dig out elder and cut of the bark with knife. At snack we played a fun game which the children loved which involves saving a squirrel from the fox! There was still time after snack to play in the mud kitchen and tree climb and of course using the new rope challenges. At the end of the session the Friday group took a different route back which they loved the children believed it was Never Never land or even Jurassic park!! The Wednesday group finished with some mindfulness where we heard a woodpecker and other birds singing.

Another great week of forest school on Wednesday we had our first experience of rain, conker Chris and Chrissy set up a shelter so if we wanted we could sit under it and make birds next. Some children made leaf piles and then pretended to be baby birds; we didn’t quite fit in the nests we made though! The children also jumped on the leaf piles which looked like great fun. Some children loved the feeling of the rain drops that came of the shelter onto their coats and heads, some children couldn’t think of anything worse!! The mud was out in full so full waterproofs where required and it helped when we fell over or slipped on the ground, whatever we done we still had loads of fun! As it was wet there was no tree climbing as welly boots and tree climbing in the rain is just too slippery so we hope to get back in the tree next week as this proves to be a favourite activity of forest school! Children from the Friday session enjoyed the dryer weather so bird nesting was much more successful and we even had a rope swing in the tree, this was a first experience but all the children done really well with climbing onto the log and swinging back and forth! We found some new bugs too, a green caterpillar and a very fat slug on the log circle. Both sessions ended in mindfulness back at the drop of point and squirrel feeding, the Wednesday group got to see the squirrels feeding, but Friday there was too many dogs and people around but we enjoyed listening to the wildlife!