Forest School | Stalmine Primary School

Our 'Forest School' journal - Stalmine Primary

Forest School Timetable - (Every Tuesday morning with Mrs Smith)

SPRING 1 & 2 2024 - CLASS 4 (Y5 & Y6)

SUMMER 1 2024 - CLASS 2 (Y1 & Y2)

SUMMER 2 2024 - CLASS 3 (Y3 & Y4)

CLASS 1 (EYFS) - Ongoing throughout the year on Tuesday afternoon with Ms Pozzi and Mrs Scott

Forest School Kit

Parents can choose to send their children to school in school uniform or winter PE kit; tracksuit bottoms and a school hoodie.Throughout the winter the children will need a coat, gloves and a hat as the weather will often be cold or wet.. During the Autumn and Winter months, the ground is often waterlogged, so we will be using the outside area close to school so that the children can stay as dry and warm as possible. We will let you know in advance if wellies are needed. At the moment, school shoes or old trainers should be worn. During the Spring and Summer months the extended areas of the school grounds will be used more including the forest school area at the bottom of the field.

Activities

For the first few weeks the children will be learning lots of outdoor games, how to use tools safely, making crafts from natural materials and how to tie different knots. The Forest School focus also links closely with the seasons and the interests of the children.

April 2024

Class 2 discussed creatures that will be coming out of hibernation at this time of year. Lots of children enjoyed looking for minibeasts and making bug hotels out of an old plastic bottle filled with sticks and fir cones. A few children enjoyed learning how to make a tepee and playing with it in the small world area, where lots of dinosaurs were having an adventure! Lots of children enjoyed the mud kitchen and they were encouraged to name their creations and try to make them symmetrical.

Nail Art - March 2024

Bird Feeders - February 2024

Den building - February 2024

Bird Boxes - Spring 2024

Bird table and trees Spring 2024

Our focus this week was ‘Trees’. We had fun working out which tree seeds were in the feely bags and looking for photos of leaves and naming the tree they came from.We learnt how to measure the height of a tree by measuring our stride in cm, walking away from the tree, counting our steps, and stop when we can see the top of the tree looking back through our legs! Multiply our stride by the number of steps and divide by 100. Lots of children successfully did this. Some Year 5 children learnt how to hold a nail with a peg before hammering, this helps to keep our fingers safe!!

The bird table is also coming along!

Spring 2024 - Using a flint to start a fire pit

This week at Forest School the children have experienced a simple orienteering course. The children have also learnt how to safely use a Dragon Sneezer (flint and magnesium rod) to set some cotton wool alight.

All the children adopted the safe kneeling position and they were all very sensible so we toasted some apple covered in sugar and cinnamon. We enjoyed learning outside in the sunshine!!