This week we continued to find nature’s treasures from the woodland floor. Everyone in Year 1 has taken part. We also enjoyed looking at a most unusual pumpkin! Some interesting observations were made after feeling the surface and looking at the pattern ” It looks like sweetcorn” ‘Or popcorn”
Playing Kim’s game in the woodland was difficult this week as it was so windy, our treasures blew away!
Forest School started this week in Year 1! I work on Monday and Tuesday and plan to give all the children in Year 1 the opportunity to spend time exploring, enjoying and learning about nature. I hope by the end of the year, all children will feel connected with nature and be inspired to protect and take care of our world.
The children were shown how to register for their session, by finding their name and hanging it on our pine tree! And of course we talked about the tree being an evergreen tree.
We went to the woodland and started our first session by looking and holding a spiky husk from a horse chestnut tree.
Each child had an empty egg box and we searched our woodland floor for nature’s treasures. We found nuts, berries, leaves, sticks, stones and feathers!
We each put 1 of our treasures on a tray and we played Kim’s game. Which treasure was taken away?
For 2 weeks in forest school we have been learning how to Hapa Zone. Hapa Zome in Japanese means ‘leaf dye’ and it’s a simple, natural way to dye fabric and it’s lots of fun!
We collected some fresh flowers and colourful leaves and arranged them on a piece of white fabric. We folded the fabric over and gently bashed it all over with a stone. The flowers and leaves make beautiful prints!
This week we were fascinated by the tarantula skin brought in by Isla. We learned that the tarantula sheds its skin to grow as its old exoskeleton gets too tight. This was fascinating to learn about and also fitted perfectly with learning about invertebrates!
Kira and Barry worked together planting out some tomato plants.
This week we visited our potato patch. The rain is really helping!
We planted out our pumpkins into a raised bed and renamed it our “Pumpkin patch”
Darcie helped to plant sweet peas and wrap the string around the canes to help them cling on as they grow up. Thanks for watering every plant Darcie!
We finished our clay pressings this week too.
This week our 2 year old Nursery visited Forest Schools. It was a privilege to have them explore the area with their enthusiasm and curiosity!
The excitement of finding worms under pots, bees on the flowers and looking at the pond life was magical to witness. Please come again!
Meanwhile in Year 1 we continued with our nature clay pressings. Charlie worked with such care, thinking about positioning his natural treasures.
We measured the heights of our sunflowers this week. The children are excited to see how they grow after planting!
The outdoor area has many books about nature, and it is lovely to see the children want to look at them and find out more!
“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect”
This really made us think, what does this quote mean? Following on from this, we collected wonderful natural resources to press into clay. We looked for nature treasures in our woodland.
Look at our Mr Greenhead’s! The children love to check on the height of the grass! We might do a haircut next week…
Our main focus this week was to plant our sunflowers in the new bed that Mr Carter made. The newspaper pot can be planted too!
In the forest school club we made seed bombs. We mixed together, flour, soil and a seed mix. It was messy, but great fun!
Hopefully the children will throw the seed bombs at a bare piece of soil and turn it into a beautiful garden!
We think the tadpoles are starting to develop! We are looking closely at some very small black specks that are moving around in the water and hoping these are the tadpoles emerging from the frog spawn.
This week in forest school we spent out time planting seeds for our veg beds. We planted broad beans, climbing beans and tomatoes.
This week we starting to make our Sedum Shack! We filled tin cans with a layer of gravel for drainage and added compost. We then chose a sedum from a tray and planted it. These will grow happily in a tin can and will enjoy being heated up by the sun!
We planted a veg bed with a wildflower seed mix. The bees and insects will love this!
