During summer Pre-school enjoyed Forest school. We went on an adventure by the bus and explored the Gruffalo and Stick Man story in the forest, moving through the space and searching for the hidden animals from the book in each of their habitats. We stopped to talk about the different habitats – where foxes live, where birds live, why they live in these places (dry/damp/cool/warm/away from danger etc).

We discussed what kind of sticks would make the perfect sticks for dolls/puppets and the kinds of things we could use for noses, ears, hair, limbs etc.
We played a game of 1,2,3 where are you to get to know the places we could explore in the park and to familiarise everyone with the call back!
During the forest school sessions, we also talked about the birds and made bird feeders with natural resources! The children enjoyed looking at all the different colours and textures in the forest by looking, touching, and describing several things we collected in a bowl, they described them as shiny/smooth/prickly/dark green/brown/cold/rough etc. We then collected some colourful things to make our own paint. I bought along turmeric and milk and berries which the children mixed themselves and used to paint on the trees/paper.

On the last two sessions of Forest School, we all squeezed inside our tarp shelter and discussed how we felt inside compared to outside/what we need in our human shelters to be comfortable. Then the children suggested different animals and we acted out/talked about what they would like in their dens/shelters. We split off into groups with tarps, ropes and tent pegs to make their own dens. Some of the kids chose to make their dens behind the trees and started a game of bears den, while some of the children used peelers to whittle! We cut a magic wand from a branch, with the children concentrating hard and learning to push softly.

The children used sheep’s wool to make felt to cover their magic wands and give them power. The children helped light the fire using fire steels to make a spark and we made & tried nettle pancakes with the children making the batter. We finished off using the rope bridge and swing to use our balancing skills.

We enjoyed our yummy pancakes at the end of the session!