Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 Hi all, just wondering if any of you are doing forest school activities, and if you could share things that really work and the children enjoy, so far, we have made dens, mud pie faces, exploring the wood, bark rubbings, magic painting, finding woodland colours, painting with mud, spider's web with wool.............be grateful if any of you have more ideas Thanks
AnonyMouse_13453 Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 Oh me too - thinking of doing this after Easter - could also with some thoughts about protective clothing suppliers
Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 Hi there Yes, all the ones you mentioned are very popular, especially mud tree faces. Whittling is very popular too. We are lucky to have lots of elder nearby. Our children also enjoy making crowns using the double sided sticky tape when we go out on a walk and the 'curtain' you can make with three or four objects collected and tied onto a length of string, all hung up together. I did a parents workshop and am planning another for April. In the first one we made bookmarks (same principle as the crowns) - colours of the rainbow is a good one. This time I am planning to do the 'biscuits' (two slivers of hazel wood sawn carefully and with a treasure sandwiched (with an elastic band) in between. Lovely! Lesley
Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 Our double sided sticky tape never seems to work, our willow dome was just cut so they really enjoyed making crowns from the willow, going to do some wittling using potato pealers.
AnonyMouse_11485 Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 Hi all, just wondering if any of you are doing forest school activities, and if you could share things that really work and the children enjoy, so far, we have made dens, mud pie faces, exploring the wood, bark rubbings, magic painting, finding woodland colours, painting with mud, spider's web with wool.............be grateful if any of you have more ideas Thanks What's magic painting? We've walked round the woods with mirrors under our chins and looked at the reflections we can see of clouds, treetops etc. Have mad crowns using cardboard bands with sticky back plastic on and leaves, twigs etc from woods stuck on them - they really look amazing. Andy Goldsworthy type sculptures with natural objects. Dens for us and nests / homes for our crow puppet! Trails for each other to follow. Hunted for signs of living things - pawprints, poo etc! Measured tree trunks - how many children fit round this tree? Which tree is biggest, has most children fitting round them? Have you had forest school training? We haven't but have a woods really close to our school and go there all the time. Wood (ha ha!) love to have training but not sure how expensive and whether HT would be convinced. Do people do forest schools all through primary successfully? How much does training etc cost?
AnonyMouse_7441 Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 These activities and ideas sound absolutely wonderful! Makes me feel really excited for what we could be doing to develop our school. Sorry nothing to offer back but thank you for sending a buzz of excited anticipation. Can you recommend any useful websites? Many thanks. luluj
Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 http://www.foresteducation.org/learning_resources.php?id=67 http://www.naturedetectives.org.uk/ these are 2 sites I use all the time
Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 http://www.forestschools.com/early-years-a...-case-study.php
Guest Posted March 10, 2009 Posted March 10, 2009 making beads out of elder - push the pithy bit out and saw into little pieces to make beads make a fire, use 2 sieves together to make popcorn so the children can investigate change make a 'spider web' to climb and balance on - rope tied in different ways between trees make a pulley using ropes over trees flour trails to find hidden treasure making bows and arrows not sure if these are 'forest school' activities but this is what we do in the woods
Guest Posted March 11, 2009 Posted March 11, 2009 What's magic painting? We've walked round the woods with mirrors under our chins and looked at the reflections we can see of clouds, treetops etc. Have mad crowns using cardboard bands with sticky back plastic on and leaves, twigs etc from woods stuck on them - they really look amazing. Andy Goldsworthy type sculptures with natural objects. Dens for us and nests / homes for our crow puppet! Trails for each other to follow. Hunted for signs of living things - pawprints, poo etc! Measured tree trunks - how many children fit round this tree? Which tree is biggest, has most children fitting round them? Have you had forest school training? We haven't but have a woods really close to our school and go there all the time. Wood (ha ha!) love to have training but not sure how expensive and whether HT would be convinced. Do people do forest schools all through primary successfully? How much does training etc cost? It is just different coloured water in bottles with paintbrushes and you can add glitter, it works better on a dry day, also painting with mud. I did a taster course which was one day around £120, they give you enough ideas for 6 weeks and then the idea is that the children then lead the play and exploration. On the course they did say it was alot of work to do the level 3 course but you can pretty much do everything you want as long as you don't call yourself a forest school. I just do it with reception at the moment but next year we are hoping that year 1 will do it too.
AnonyMouse_18403 Posted March 14, 2009 Posted March 14, 2009 Thank you for the links bluestar. luluj Hi what about dream catchers Marshie
Guest Posted March 14, 2009 Posted March 14, 2009 This week we are going to light a fire, pop corn in 2 sieves, marshmallows..........should be fun.
Guest Posted March 15, 2009 Posted March 15, 2009 Can you explain about pop corn in 2 sieves please it sounds wonderful. Thanks Anne
AnonyMouse_832 Posted March 15, 2009 Posted March 15, 2009 Does anyone know where we can get some willows from for an outdoor feature - we need some really long ones not just short ones to thread through a sculpture. I am in Birmingham so needs to be postal delivery or close to us.
Guest Posted March 15, 2009 Posted March 15, 2009 Can you explain about pop corn in 2 sieves please it sounds wonderful. Thanks Anne It's just 2 sieves wired together and held over the fire - with the kernels inside obviously then held over the fire so that teh childre can actually see the kernels popping and changing into popcorn
Guest Posted March 22, 2009 Posted March 22, 2009 Can you explain about pop corn in 2 sieves please it sounds wonderful. Thanks Anne First time trying it but it worked well, we lit the fire, then you put the popcorn in a metal sieve, cover it with another sieve, it gets to the right heat and starts popping. The children loved watching it pop
Guest Posted March 14, 2010 Posted March 14, 2010 What's magic painting? We've walked round the woods with mirrors under our chins and looked at the reflections we can see of clouds, treetops etc. Have mad crowns using cardboard bands with sticky back plastic on and leaves, twigs etc from woods stuck on them - they really look amazing. Andy Goldsworthy type sculptures with natural objects. Dens for us and nests / homes for our crow puppet! Trails for each other to follow. Hunted for signs of living things - pawprints, poo etc! Measured tree trunks - how many children fit round this tree? Which tree is biggest, has most children fitting round them? Have you had forest school training? We haven't but have a woods really close to our school and go there all the time. Wood (ha ha!) love to have training but not sure how expensive and whether HT would be convinced. Do people do forest schools all through primary successfully? How much does training etc cost? I'm just doing the level 3 practitioner training - it is absolutely fantastic. We have done it as a borough, so i'm not sure about costs, but this is the company that is doing our training and they come highly recommended! http://www.forestschooltraining.co.uk/ Other useful sites are: http://www.shropshire.gov.uk/schools.nsf/o...02575450054B510 http://schools.norfolk.gov.uk/index.cfm?s=...mp;p=1127,index http://www.foresteducation.org/ I hope these are helpful
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