Forest School: Blog items
Date: 24th Nov 2021 @ 10:34pm
Our Eco Warriors from Reception, Year1 and Year 2 have been busy planting spring bulbs in the pond area of our school grounds as part of the BBC Plant Britain project.
Countryfile Plant Britain wants to get everyone planting in a big, ambitious two-year project where we can all do our bit in the battle against climate change and to help wildlife and our own well being.
Anyone can take part either at home with your friends and family or within the community too.
Get planting and help prevent climate change!
Date: 19th Nov 2021 @ 4:12pm
As part of our final Forest School session, we spent our time outdoors learning different types of survival skills.
Year 5 made dens out of different materials and learnt how to secure them using a range of knots and understood why it is important to protect ourselves from cold weather whilst out in nature. We then made a fire and understood why different factors such as the wind and types of energies can have an impact on their effectiveness.
To finish our sessions, we made pizza, shortbread and hot chocolate.
We have had such a great time and learnt so much about the outdoors.
Date: 12th Nov 2021 @ 4:05pm
We recently started our three week journey of Forest School last week. This is time where we can enjoy being outside and connecting with all things nature!
So far, we have engaged in activities such as singing round the campire, finding frogs and making honey shortbread over the fire.
We all love our time in our dedicated Forest School area, and we are learning so much about how to properly care for wildlife and our planet.
Date: 22nd Oct 2021 @ 11:13am
Today we took part in the activity 'What's Under Our Feet?' This involved digging up a 30cm square section of earth and looking inside the soil to see what lives there. The purpose of this was to see the variety of living creatures available for birds to eat. We found earthworms, spiders and grubs in the ground. We also measured the earthworms to see if there were different types/sizes.
Date: 21st Oct 2021 @ 8:16pm
Today we took part in the 'What's Under Your Feet? experiment.' We chose a patch to investigate in a section of grass near to our KS1 playground. Using a spade, we dug the top layer of soil and grass and tipped it onto a tray. We then sorted and identified the minibeasts we found in the soil, before very carefully putting them back and replacing the grass.
Date: 21st Oct 2021 @ 5:01pm
Over the past three weeks, Year 2 have been getting their hands dirty and enjoying learning outside. In the first session, the children explored the different outdoor areas and enjoyed making cake and other treats in the mud kitchen as well as doing some leaf painting. During the second week, we built dens and bird boxes for next year before learning to light a fire so we could cook apples and dip them in melted chocolate of caramel. This week, both classes learnt about the cardinal directions (North, East, South and West) and what each one represents. We created pieces inspired by Andy Goldsworthy to represent the Earth (North), Air (East), Fire (South) and Water (West). Lastly, we enjoyed toasting marshmallows. We have enjoyed our three weeks outside and look forward to our next sessions in the Summer.
Date: 21st Oct 2021 @ 5:00pm
We took part in 'What's Under Your Feet' task where we had to check the food supply for birds. We threw a pencil onto the grass to select the area and this would be the place we were going to dig up to investigate. Once we had selected our area, we measured 30cm x 30cm ready to dig up. We used a spade to dig up the top layer of grass and soil and tipped it onto a tray. Using rulers and plastic dishes, we placed worms and other wildlife in to measure the lengths of the food source for birds. Whilst we were doing this task, we saw seaguls stamping their feet on the grass to trick the worms into thinking that it's raining so that they would come to the surface.
Date: 8th Oct 2021 @ 7:57am
This week we took part in the whole school 'No Pen Day!' and boy did we have fun! Our lessons were 100% practical and discussion based. We used physical 2D and 3D shapes to learn about their properties and their names by sorting, describing and playing games. We also found the features of information texts using blue tack and string to label a WAGGOL. In the afternoon we were lucky enough to find out about the importance of recycling using Now Press Play.
Date: 28th Sep 2021 @ 7:50am
Year 1 have had a brilliant start to the new school year. We have enjoyed exploring our new classrooms and completing independent tasks in continuous provision, alongside our daily lessons. We have been accurately counting forwards and backwards in maths, writing labels and sentences about 'The Colour Monster' in Reading into Writing and exploring the human body and our five senses in Science. We have also enjoyed our Forest School sessions and exploring our local area
Date: 23rd Sep 2021 @ 7:02pm
This week in Geography we began to learn about physical and human features. We learnt that human and physical features are things we can see all around us. We discussed how physical features are natural and would be here even if there were no people around. We identified physical features such as seas, grass, mountains and rivers. We also talked about how human features are man made and built by people. It was then time to visit the outdoor areas around school and the Forest School area to identify as many human and physical features as possible. Have a look at what we found!
Date: 17th Sep 2021 @ 7:42pm
This week we enjoyed our first Forest School session on a lovely sunny day! In the Forest School area lots of fruits are growing on the trees and during our session this week we learnt about which are safe to eat and which aren't. We also held lots of different minibeasts we found in the area, making sure to treat them with care and put them back where we had found them! We all enjoyed spending some time in the area and are already looking forward to our next session!
Date: 13th Sep 2021 @ 12:22pm
This half-term in Cedar, we are going to be eco warriors!
We started our topic by investigating Miss T's rubbish into what is recyclable or non-recylable. We discussed each item and how some parts of the items weren't and some were so we would have to separate them.
We learned about how must plasic there is in the oceans and seas and what we can do to help. We then used some of Miss T's rubbish to junk model our own sea creatures.
Date: 9th Sep 2021 @ 9:50pm
The children had such a brilliant time during their Forest School session this week.They found blackberries growing on a bush and apples and plums growing on trees! Of course we had to have a little taste and blackberries were the definite favourite! The children loved exploring outdoors and hunted for bugs, made pies in the mud kitchen and made patterns in the playdough using pinecones and sticks. We can't wait to visit the Forest School again!
Date: 16th Jul 2021 @ 1:27pm
Year Two had a fantastic final session with Forest School this week. We had fun mixing potions and making food in the mud kitchen area. We refreshed our knotting skills from earlier in the year by using rope and tarpaulin to create a teepee. We picked and ate our own wild fruits including raspberries, blackberries and goosebeeries. Then we consolidated our Science knowledge of food chains, prey and predators with an exciting game of 'Hungry Squirrel'.
As a special end of year treat, we sang songs around the campfire as we all took turns to melt marshmellows to make delicious s'mores.
Date: 2nd Jul 2021 @ 7:11pm
During the last two weeks year 1 have enjoyed our final two sessions of Forest School. We were very excited to be able to take part in our last sessions before the summer holidays!
Over the past two weeks we have explored teamwork, resiliance and cooperation through a number of different activities. We also linked our learning to our current topic in DT, structures.
We recapped on the key fundamentals of Forest School, looking after nature, keeping ourselves and others safe and having fun!
During our sessions we matched different colours in nature, made plates of food for fairies, tried fruit growing from the trees, collected 'nectar' for the Queen Bee, toasted marshmallows and ate them!
Date: 10th Jun 2021 @ 4:14pm
Today the children took part in their first of 2 Forest School sessions. As part of the lesson, the children took part in a range of activites, inlcuding:
- Mandala making
- Fire building
- Code breaking
- Smore making
The children had a great time and worked well together as a team. They created some beautiful mandala art work where they used the resources found in the outside area. We are looking forward to our session next week!
Date: 10th Jun 2021 @ 4:08pm
Today the children took part in their first of 2 Forest School sessions. As part of the lesson, the children took part in a range of activities, including:
- Mandala making
- Fire building
- Code breaking
- Smore making
- Nature necklaces
The children had a great time and worked well together as a team. They created some beautiful mandalas using resources found in nature as well as necklaces. We are looking forward to our session next week.
Shell Structures for Design Technology
Date: 19th May 2021 @ 4:36pm
For our Design Technology day we created our own Shell Structures, after looking at the nets of many different existing product packagings.
Our design brief was to create a lunch box suitable for a Year 3 pupil to take out to a picnic that could carry food. Although we had to create our models in card and paper, we discussed how it would be better for them to be made in plastic so they would be more durable but less eco friendly as plastic pollution is a big problem for the planet.
We discussed how the existing products we had looked at were made from recycleable materials and we used recycled card in our final designs. We found the recycle symbols on most of our existing products.
We completed our designs, made our prototypes and refined our ideas before creating our final product in card. We also learned how to strengthen and stiffen materials using laminating, tubes and corrugation. We had to cut and glue carefully once we had put our bold designs onto our structures. It was very fiddly and tricky but we showed resilience.
Fantastic Forest School Fun For Year Five!
Date: 17th May 2021 @ 8:41pm
Year Five have been really enjoying their forest schools sessions! They have completed a collaborative challenge of building a tower using only natural materials, found tadpoles in the pond, built a campfire and sampled popcorn cooked on the fire. The children are currently working towards the completion of a forest schools certificate.
One potato, two potato, three potato, four...
Date: 17th May 2021 @ 4:56pm
This week we have been planting potatoes in our outdoor area. We worked together, sharing the tools and helping each other dig the holes. It was a rainy day and we were very dirty when we had finished! In a few months time, with some sunshine and (more) rain, they should be ready for digging up and eating- we can't wait!
Releasing our butterflies in to the wild!
Date: 9th May 2021 @ 5:20pm
Over the past 3 week Reception have been closely observing our classroom caterpillars. We have be watching how they have grown and changed and talking about the lifecycle of the butterfly. When the caterpillars first arrived they were tiny, so small we had to use our magnifying glasses to look at them. Each day they have grown bigger and bigger because they have been eating the caterpillar food. Last week the caterpillars hung upside down and made a chrysalis around their body. At this point we carefully transferred them into out butterfly net and waited patiently for the butterflies to emerge. Finally on Thursday morning we watched as a butterflies emerged from their chrysalis. It was amazing! Their wings were very wet so we had to wait for them to dry. The we put some orange segments in the net for the butterflies to feed on. On Friday afternoon we talked about the importance of the butterflies being free so we let them go in the garden. They were very friendly and they enjoyed perching on the children's hands before flying off. Have a look at some of the amazing pictures of the children holding them.
Date: 7th May 2021 @ 7:29pm
Today in Science we created a microhabitat in the form of a bug hotel! We have linked our Reading into Writing sessions this week with our previous learning in Science and have been using our senses to complete sentence writing about hot and cold habitats. We have looked at the features of polar habitats, under the sea habitats and desert habitats. We then also looked at where various deserts are located on a World map. Before we went outside to forage for materials to make our bug hotel, we discussed what features bug hotels need to make an appropriate habitat for mini beasts. We said they need to be compact, contain different materials and have different layers. After foraging for materials we used our plastic bottles to create our very own micro bug hotels for our gardens.
Date: 7th May 2021 @ 3:35pm
The children took part in their final forest school session of year 4. They spent time building dens, shaving tree branches, doing finger nitting and looking at the tadpoles in the pond. They really enjoyed this session and said how they were all excited to start forest school again in year 5.
Date: 5th May 2021 @ 1:48pm
We have been having a great time with our growing topic this half term. We have planted cress, sunflower seeds and beans and we are now waiting for our caterpillars to make their cocoons! We have also been making the most of our outdoor area and planted some vegetable seeds. We are hoping that we get a crop of yummy carrots and delicious radishes!
Date: 4th May 2021 @ 3:39pm
The children in Reception have been busy preparing our raised bed in our garden for planting. We pulled out daffodil bulbs and dug over the soil to make sure it is ready for planting. We then planted our peas that we have in growing inside as well some pumpkin seeds, sunflowers and potatoes.
We talked about what we need to do take care of them.
