Welcome to our 'taste of Forest School' at Blackwood.
At Blackwood we're proud to offer ' A Taste' of Forest School to our students. This year we to offer Monday afternoon sessions to our Year Five children. Each set of fifteen children aim to complete five sessions (within available timetabling.)
As one of the main six aims of Forest School is to work within a 'child-led' approach, each session may differ as our groups explore their interests and drive their skills and knowledge further.
Our students are instructed in ways of identifying challenges and hazards through their exploration and are taught safe ways of working as identified in our many risk assessments. A challenge or risk may differ according to the activity and be emotional or physical, from learning within an outdoor environment, coping with the weather, offering ideas to a group or using a saw, drill or cooking on a fire.
Scroll down to see what we've been up to or for ideas to try out at home and other outdoor spaces.
We hope you enjoy what you find.
Stay wild!
Mrs Leadley and Mrs Sandland.
Welcome to Forest School 2023-2024
We're looking forward to developing our sessions this year. Offering our Forest School to Year Five for a change and developing independence skills, self-confidence, creative talents and an understanding of our natural environment.
Or willow dragon needed it's new shoots weaving back in.
Working hard.
Team work.
Our satisfied team.
Autumn fungi. Look but don't touch.
Getting creative with clay.
We learnt how to use spades safely.
Tree guardian in progress.
Triple fun.
Big smiles!
Learning about ropes and pulleys
Pulley experimentation.
Tool use
Using a bow saw.
Learning our knots.
Tree cookies.
We found an enormous woodlouse.
My creation.
We have learnt how to use a flint and steel.
Making our pizzas for the pizza oven.
Tasty!
We can't wait for these.
Cooking nicely!
Making conker washing liquid.
Differnt layers in our filter.
Planting some more saplings.
Our filtered washing liquid.
The finished filter.
In action!
We love fungi. Look but don't touch!
Micro-fungi.
Bracket fungi.
Look but don't touch!
Woodland working
Spooky skeleton
Another spooky skeleton
Drilling conkers
Crystal brain fungus
Lets play conkers
Slug!
Micro fungi
Den building with bashers.
Perseverance.
Centipede
Just chilling.
Too much fun!
Success!
2022-2023
3N Forest School sessions
Class 3H Forest School sessions.
We made our own cobb using clay, sand and straw to repair our pizza oven.
The garlic bread was lovely.
We also roasted marchmallows
Our fire circle
A new home for The Bog Baby
Working in the woods.
More Bog babies
More Bog babies
We repaired the Cobb pizza oven and tested it out.
Planting
Building a raft
Building a raft
Getting the oven nice and hot.
Scary skeleton
Scary skeleton
Scary skeleton
4K Forest sessions. 2021-2022
We've been working on our shelters using a combination of tarpaulins, rope and natural materials. Several of us enjoyed drinking our hot chocolate inside them and did wonder how comfortable they would be to sleep in!
We've also been experimenting with clay, making tree guardians and also exploring the texture of it. We looked at how to smooth it and print on it as well as finding the tactile nature of it very satisfying.
Moving on to using tools, we've learnt the rules of how to use them safely and added in some tree climbing for good measure.
Activities from The Woodland Trust.
Fancy making a boat to sail in the park or go butterfly spotting? Maybe you want to explore how nature changes as we go into summer? Click on this link for lots of great activities.
The 8th June is the World Oceans Day. There are lots of fun activities, videos and resources to access to teach us all about how we should look after the water on our planet.
Please send me an email with what you have found out or to show me your work.
If your grown ups need some wild time, why don't you show them the next link so that they can enjoy nature and be calm and peaceful when working from home!
I shall be bringing you lots of activities from Wild Days which think about all sorts of natural and Geographical activities. The first theme is 'Islands.' There is an activity for each day of the week. Please send pictures of your work or your ideas to your year group email addresses. I look forward to seeing what you have been up to.
Forest School originated in Denmark as a method of teaching children within a wooded setting. Through exploration, play and child-lead activity your children will undertake learning and exploration opportunities in a non-formal environment, focusing on creative and linguistic expressions of their learning. We are very lucky here at Blackwood as our school is set in the middle of woodland and provides access to several areas within the school site within which, our sessions take place.
As a member of The Forest School Association, we endeavour to follow the main Forest School ideals. Here is a video from Matt Harder (FSA Director) to explain what Forest School is all about.
Forest School is an important part of our curriculum giving Blackwood pupils a unique educational experience using the outdoor environment of the forest as a classroom. Forest School activities are arranged for primarily, Year Four children but can be extended to other year groups. We are lucky enough to have a fantastic eco-garden on our site which provides a contrasting habitat to enhance our studies. Forest School is led by Mrs Leadley, one of our own teachers and a qualified level 3 Forest School Leader. Mrs Leadley is supported by our loyal volunteers, Mr Davies and Mrs Sandland and Miss Taylor.
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