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Forest School News

20th January 2020

Willows rescue the Bug Hotel!

Willows worked together this week, to help repair the Bug Hotel, which was looking a bit shabby and in need of attention.

Willows started off by helping to build up the layers of pallets, adding bricks between each one…

Then everyone helped to fill pots, and the spaces between the pallets, with natural resources such as leaves, sticks, stones, pine cones, straw and vegetation. What a team Willows were! They all worked really hard and made a great job of filling the hotel with different habitats…

Some children used the loppers to cut lengths of bamboo-the hollow sticks will make great hidey holes for lots of different insects.

The completed bug hotel-ready to attract lots of new residents!

Puppets, printing and play

Oaks had a great time this week, using the stage area to put on a puppet show. There was much laughter as the woodland animal puppets danced, sang songs and played peekaboo!

Some children enjoyed using the mini-beast stampers…

…whilst others investigated our mini-beast discovery table.

And everyone had fun whilst learning and playing together.

Acers amazing animal homes

Acers are proving to be a fabulous class to work with! Today they started off their morning, recapping the number line activity we did at the beginning of last week’s session…except this time we asked them to stand next to the number of animal homes they thought they could name independently…

Everyone chose their numbers well! And if, when asked to tell us the names of the animal homes, they realised they were standing by the incorrect number, Acers children then worked out whether they should move up or down the number line.

Last week, after our nest building activity, some of the class asked if they could make some homes for other animals…so that is exactly what we did! Mrs. Smith set a challenge to build a home that would keep a woodland animal dry, safe and warm. We looked at some of the woodland animal toys, got into teams and then worked together to make these amazing creations!

Team 1 made a home for a mum and dad squirrel. They started off at the end of the see-saw as they thought that the plank made a good roof. Then they added hay to keep the squirrels warm, planks of wood to protect them and keep them dry…and a long pathway leading up to the entrance.

Team 2 chose a mouse. They built walls from bricks, then built a roof to cover the mouse, using sticks to balance over the top of the bricks. They found a piece of artificial grass in out outdoor store and used that to make a garden for the mouse. Then they added more planks to the roof to make sure the mouse stayed dry and finished off by making a playground complete with tunnel, and a wall all around the edge of the garden!

Team 3 looked for a tree for their squirrel…and decided on a large tree stump on the ground. They cleared out the leaves to make the inside clean, added straw to make a soft dry bed, then protected the squirrel by covering the outside in long sticks. We talked about how well disguised he looked inside his finished home!

When all 3 teams had finished, we took turns to look at each home, to ask and answer questions about it. We also decided what we liked about them all. All 3 teams were very proud of their work and enjoyed a round of applause from their classmates.

Before hot chocolate, a biscuit and our reflection time, we had the opportunity to choose our own activities. One of the favourites today was retelling the story of the 3 little pigs in the playhouse…there was much laughter and squealing at the naughty wolf!