Antigua Forest School

Antigua loved their visit to Forest School. We enjoyed noticing lots of signs of Spring as the flowers were beginning to bloom on our walk through the fields to the forest. We began the session with game of giant rock, paper, scissors which brought out our competitiveness and collaboration skills. The hammock was a hit with lots of children learning how to safely get in and out without spinning completely over! Then enjoying some sky gazing whilst gently swaying in it. Our new birds were a firm favourite with many children identifying them by matching them to pictures and listening to the differnt calls they make. All in all another fun afternoon in the forest last week.

Reception Forest School - Camp Fire Experience

Today all reception children took part in a wonderful camp fire experience! 

They visited the forest and sat very safely and patiently around the fire circle. 

We discussed the fire and what safety measures we had in place and how we were all going to keep ourselves and each other safe.

All the children learnt how to adopt the respect position when kneeling at the fire to keep safe and they did a great job of this. 

They toasted their own marshmallows until they were bubbly and sticky and then they squeezed them between two biscuits to make yummy gooey smores! 

The smiles on their faces said it all! 

A great time was had by everyone at forest school this afternoon. 

 

Antigua Forest School

 

Antigua had a lovely afternoon at forest school yesterday. The high winds settled down just in time for us to venture to the forest.

                                            

The children noticed just how bare the trees were as almost every leaf has been blown away so it was the perfect opportunity to hang some bird seed feeders to the empty branches for the birds to enjoy. During our reflection time at the end of the session we even spotted a little robin who came to visit and had a nibble! 

The mud kitchen was ever as popular. The children enjoyed finding some forest friends to play with this week and they carefully assessed if the tree was too slippery or not before climbing the tree. Great work Antigua class. 

                                                

Antigua's first visit to the forest!

This afternoon Antigua thoroughly enjoyed their first forest school session. 

We learnt about our boundaries and how to move safely around the forest. We did lots of 'noticing' of the natural world around us and played some games to get us warmed up. Ninja stick was a firm favourite! With lots of partner work and good communication skills being used. 

We then got very busy, digging, climbing trees, taking turns, balancing on logs, mixing potions and looking for bugs!

Some of us chose to make 'leaf sparklers' and some of these became 'wands' to create spells! 

We learnt some new songs and enjoyed a story to finish our afternoon. 

We can't wait until next time. 

    

A cool afternoon at forest school

Antigua had a lovely cooling afternoon in the forest for their final session yesterday. There was painting with oak gall, lots of digging, mixing in the nature kitchen, flag making and hide and seek. 

Some children were chilling in the dens and in the hammocks they described themselves as "A caterpillar wrapped up inside it's chrysalis."

   As always everyone had a fantastic time and they didn’t want to go home.

Fun in the sun for Antigua's forest school

Antigua class got busy making hapa zome butterflies today. They gathered petals and leaves, placed them inbetween the fabric and tapped with the mallets to make symmetrical patterns as the natural dye was squashed from the leaves. 

They hunted for minibeasts finding beetles, wood lice, worms and a centipede. There was balancing along logs, resting in the hammock and painting with acorn ink. It was lovely to enjoy the forest in the sunshine.

Antigua Forest School

Bugs, bugs, we find lots of bugs at forest school. Today was all about bugs, we looked for them in their habitats - under logs and stones, climbing the trees, hiding in the mud, crawling on the flowers. We made mini bug hotels and added them into a luxury giant bug hotel so that the bugs have plenty of spaces to live. 

Some children even made a mini obstacle course for the bugs to play on. 

The rope swing was ever as popular with lots of patient waiting and turn taking. 

Colour spotters in the forest

Antigua were fantastic nature colour spotters on Wednesday afternoon. They explored the field and found lots of dandelions and daisys. We then sorted our finds by colour. 

                                             

Then in the forest we found green leaves, brown mud and black charcoal. We used the colours to make natural paint and experimented with using sticks and leaves as paintbrushes. 

                                          

There was even time to do some bird watching and it was very exciting to watch the Robin come and visit. The digging area was ever as popular and we found a whole worm family but were sure to return them to their habitat before we left.