Forest School Starts at East Farleigh!

It's here, we kick off our first Forest School session of the 2024/2025 school year. I am so excited to be able to share our activities and adventures with you.

Forest School Year 4 - Week 1

 
Forest school was first introduced in the UK 1993. It was founded in Sweden in 1982.
The concept is to get children out in nature and learn from nature, build their confidence and work together.
There is so much to explore and learn from the natural world.

Today we took out year 4's for their first session of the school year. We had 2 sessions,  one in the morning and then another after lunch. This is to ensure the whole class benefits. Groups of 15 are alot more manageable and meaningful for everyone involved.
Today was all about learning how to make a den. There are so many skills involved. Our fine motor skills are put to the test, working as a team, problem solving and risk assessing. We needed to learn some basic knots - this helped us get our tarps attached to the trees and make shift 'poles'. We used tree branches found in our forest school area for this.
The children learnt how to use our wooden mallets to safely knock in tent pegs to keep our tarps secure.  There are many ways you can build a den, we learnt a couple.
Building a den in the outdoors is very handy for all weather. It keeps the sun off of us, keeps us dry, shelters from the wind and if you are very adventurous,  a place to sleep if you're camping in the woods or perhaps a night out in the garden?

    

The next bit was very fun,  I'd say a highlight for all of the children. We made a fire from scratch. No matches in sight. We used a flint to get us going. We also used mallets, outdoor knives and wood to make kindling for our fire.

I was so impressed with how confident everyone was with making a fire.  Safety is of great importance and number one. We make sure there are no hazards that could cause harm to anyone.   Once we got our fire going it was time to get the hot chocolate made. Everyone enjoyed a well deserved treat for all their hard work!!

See you next week for another session!