Autumn 2

It has been a busy half term at Forest School...

• Hickling pre-school children have joined in the fun on Wednesday afternoons, proving that they are very careful bug hunters - especially finding spiders!  They have also enjoyed making stick streamers on windy days and building dens with the older children when it has been wet.  We were delighted to welcome Sonya from the EDP to take photos of us enjoying our Forest School sessions.

• Cheetahs Class at Catfield have been mastering their knots, which have been useful for our shelters and our constructions with sticks.

 
               

• Finally, the Year 1's at Sutton have loved having the swing up and have continued to invent wonderful games for which they created castles, camp fires and woodland cafes!

  

Autumnal Treasure

Forest School sessions have re-started across the federation and we have been treated to some lovely, autumnal weather.  Lots of our activities have been around collecting the treasures that the season brings - different coloured leaves, conkers, acorns, fruits from our fruit trees and blackberries from the hedgerows.  We have used some of our harvest to make pictures, sculptures and jewelry.  Some of us have explored using a palm drill to make holes in sticks and conkers to help us in our making and creating!

Of course, some of us continue to enjoy making our dens and camps as well as getting muddy!

As the weather turns cooler, we are looking forward to having camp fires and hot chocolate...

 

 

 

 
 

 

Summer 1

At Hickling we were excited to welcome a visitor from another school who had heard about us doing Forest School and wanted to see it in action!  She was impressed with our den building and helped us create mud soup in our mud kitchen!  We sat and had our hot chocolate around the fire and talked to her about what we enjoyed at Forest School.

Finally the Reception Class at Sutton and Panthers Class at Catfield started their Forest School sessions this term.  The younger children love the game '1, 2, 3 where are you' and always ask to play this.  They also love looking for minibeasts and playing on our tree swing.  Mr Hall's Class got stuck into den building, tried to fly on a particularly windy day using a tarpaulin and helped to build the fire for hot chocolate and marshmallows.

Spring 2

As the sunshine made a return, we were able to find lots of spring treasures to be creative with.  Some of us made cards using natural materials, others of us perfected our weaving skills.

At Sutton and Hickling we found newts thriving in our ponds and we loved watching them swim up to the surface and then dive back down under the weed.

Catfield Cheetah's enjoyed lots of den building, returning week after week to add to their creations and displaying excellent team work.  They also helped me to collect lots of branches from the oak trees that the farmer had cut down the lane.  One of the children said it was the best thing they had ever done at school - taking a branch for a walk down the lane!

 

 

Spring 1

This half term children at all three schools have wanted to explore den building.  Some children have come up with new ways to build shelters each week, others have returned to their dens each week to make improvements and some have wanted to make shelters for animals to help keep the warm and dry!

We have also had lots of conversations and stories around the fire as well as one group exploring how to make a rope swing.