On board...

I eventually plucked up the courage to ask my fantastic teaching assistant if she would be up for assistanting with Forest School activities for KS2. I was slightly nervous because despite me loving being outside and learning, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea!

She said, "Yes, I'd love to!"

The team is building nicely for our school now, as Becky has also asked her teaching assistant Michelle to assist in KS1. Team FS.

Filming a walkthrough

One of the next steps is going to be exploring our proposed site and our instructor had recommended carrying out a walk through description of what the site is like. With that in mind, Becky and I set out at lunchtime donned with mu iPad to record our site.

I'm not overly sure what I was expecting but the time of year really hindered us. Everything was looking asleep and damp. We attempted to identify trees we had learned about but looking purely at twigs and trunks made things tricky.

Result: more time needed to get to know trees and also perhaps wait a little while for the trees to begin to grow shoots.

Tree Classification with Year 4

Thinking about different creative ways for the children to classify different trees for themselve using spotter sheets and leaves.
We recorded our findings using a clay tile and also looked up the 'fancy' Latin names.

Link to class blog post

They were really reduced...

A post-swimming trip to our local garden centre resulting in finding a couple of bargains...

Tree Spirits

Tree Spirits with Year 4

I loved making Tree Spirits with my Year 4 class - this was before I had had my initial week's training. It was great to share them through our class blog.

Sharing the vision

Attending the first aid training gave Becky and I time to refocus our plans and think about the timescales involved. Today was the day we had arranged to share our plans with our headteacher.

To immerse her fully, we decided to start by taking her down to our propsed site. Wellies on and we were off. Being winter there were no leaves on trees enabling us to have better visibility of the site. We shared the idea of where our fire circle would be and how we envisaged the area having a wilder look, where the mowers wouldn't have to come round.

Health and Safety and vandals were top of her list of concerns, especially around the idea of having fires. We discussed not removing fallen branches and leaving them where they fell - to provide materials for children to explore. Longer term, we discussed creating an open structure for an outdoor classroom.

Back inside we went through our proposal and explained the different phases we would have where we would be working with different groups of children at different times.

In relation to funding, she asked if we would be willing to present to the Parent and Teachers Association, who she was confident would provide the bulk of the funding for equipement.

All in all she was in favour of our plans.

Relief.

Happy Christmas!

Romantic present collection from my husband!

My husband is incredibly supportive of my Forest School journey and even went on the Forest School site to buy some kit for me as a Christmas present - unbeknownst to me!



*After all the family had gone and the boy was fast asleep I received an enternity ring too - I love Forest School but I think the ring wins here!