1.1 Assignment (Unit 5): Lead the first 6 in a series of planned Forest School sessions, demonstrating flexibility in response to individuals needs

Session One

To introduce the children to the Forest School setting and establish rules. 

The children were excited to be visiting the forest, they started by collecting sticks - high engagement and enjoyment. All engaged in morning song and learnt the words quickly. 

Quiet time - listening to sounds around use - some children found this difficult to concentrate and could not help but shout out instantly what they heard instead of waiting for direction. Completed this in a short amount of time, hoping to extend the time in future sessions. 

Laid out the forest school rules, repeated a few times in a rhythm to help memory. All children joined in, most children managed to engage when dissecting the rules and explain why we need to stick to these. Used the no hands up rule and most children were able to answer questions asked. 

Treasure Hunt - Used to help children explore the space, all children involved for first activity to help confidence with exploring the area. Children were able to confidently select tools they may need for the treasure hunt, tubs, bags and tick lists. Most children were happy to go exploring, some couldn’t contain themselves and wanted to run, quick safety discussion of uneven ground and being safe.  A few children felt overwhelmed with the opportunity and the amount of different areas to explore - adults modelled collecting items and ‘wondering aloud’ allowing the children to feel like they could answer and pursue the quest. 

Exploration time was short as extra time was spent first thing explaining rules and boundaries and quiet time. Children tended to stay close to base camp and weren’t yet ready to explore fully, adults encouraged to help children expand their search. 

Reflection time - Some children found it hard to think of something independently and needed prompting from a friend or time to think, a lot of repeated activities, due to confidence of choosing their own experience.

Considerations for the next session:

• Children have further opportunities to explore the woodland space with/without adult support

• Children to explore imaginative play eg: sticks as swords/wands/walking sticks etc

Session 2

Today's plan had to be adapted as the weather was raining - changed to a den building to keep children active and focused and hopefully provide shelter as an outcome. 

Session started as before, repeating rules, and setting out a flexible plan for the session. Children excitedly retrieved sticks knowing the routine for the song. Majority of children remembered the song and rhythm. Quiet time was more successful but not still 100% attention, children were able to stay quieter for longer and managed to explain a few more sounds, and extended to feeling as well eg. felt the wind on their face. The train came along the track at this point and we noted the time to listen out for it again next week. 

Whilst sat in base camp sand holding sticks from our morning song, started to talk about the sort of things we can do with our sticks, lots of good ideas from building to using as a sword. Spoke about safety rules, how to carry a stick without hurting people and not to break sticks off trees, good understanding from group why we don’t do this. 

Adults modelled den building in small groups to speed up the process and have the children begin as soon as they could, most children decided to build a den against a tree, a few struggled understanding the physics of how to get to balance - adult intervention needed on some. Some children expanded their den and built small gardens, swimming pools and even an upstairs! 

Introduced free play, however, the majority of children decided to continue on building, however some children decided to discover new things to do with sticks such as drum sticks or simply using them as digging tools to find bugs. 

Considerations for the next session. 

• Children found worms and spiders and were excited to share

• Children's experiences need to be broader and engage more with the forest

Session 3

Plan to start to introduce flora and insects experience into sessions. Walking along to Forest school a child spotted snowdrops, we stopped to look closer, discussed how and where they grew, making sure we looked after them and did not pick. Some children disinterested in this and wanted to just get to the space whereas others were very interested in how the snowdrop looked. 

As with previous sessions, they started off with stick songs, rules and routines, all well established, children now know the routine and all pick up sticks before sitting a base camp and some even quietly listening to sounds around them getting ready for quiet time. Managed to extend time on quiet time as more children became interested and started to broaden their senses and able to use correct terminology. 

Bug Hunting - Explored the bug hunting equipment and how best to use it. Children are very engaged and all wanting to use the equipment and get searching. Made links to maths with identification charts for bugs. Lightly guided the children where the best place to find insects and adults dotted around the area to help with any heavy movement of deadwood or logs. High engagement from all children during this session, a lot of new creatures found for many children. Towards the end of the session for bug hunting, some children had lost interest, they diverted off to their own activity, either adding to last week's den or simply exploring the space. Some children used the digging pit to find bugs and managed to find some worms. 

Reflection time - Children were excited and enthusiastic to inform everyone of what they had found and who had found the most insects. Lots of positive speech and conversations between children. 

Considerations for the next session:

• Continue with minibeasts investigation

• Children becoming interested in flora, do more work on this

• Encouragement still to explore some unfound spaces in the area and independent play

Session 4

Straight into routine today as wanting to achieve a lot from today’s experience. We had planned not to do the stick song today but the children all automatically grabbed sticks and wanted to do this, so we continued to sing the song. Quick recap of rules - all children engaged and managed to answer along with me. 

Hoops - Children well engaged with the activity and enjoyed having resources. Adults supported the children by looking and encouraging them to choose something that may challenge an answer. Some children fixated on getting the most things within their hoop. 

Maximised their free play by producing as many activities as we could, with also allowing their own free choice:

• Den building  

• Hunting for bugs   

• Picture Frame/ transient art  

• Digging pit/ clay sculptures 

• Mud painting 

• Mud kitchen  

• 
  

Children are all enthusiastic with the activities, den building and mud kitchen most popular. Some children stuck with one activity for the entire session, a few flitted between activities and some created their own activities such as searching for dinosaurs or playing cops and robbers where the dens were in jail. Children are starting to use their imagination and create their own experiences. 

Considerations for the next session

• Imaginative play with animal puppets and dens

• Continue to use extended play during sessions

 Session 5

Read a book previously coming to a forest school setting, so as to gain the most out of the area. Rules once again well received and repeated. This week we aimed to concentrate on freeplay with an extra activity, adding in wool tying. Children were able to choose their own activity or try a new experience, it was encouraged they try something new.  Most children from the session tried tying sticks together with the wool to create something new, wands, crosses, swords etc.  Some children found this difficult and needed adult intervention.

Some children wanted to try and build bridges across a small shallow stream, adult supervision a group of children managed to succeed with this, children from the session were then given the choice when leaving camp if they would like to cross the children’s bridge, majority of session did and found it very exciting and made comments that they would like to try building one next week!

Considerations for the next session

• Children enjoyed using wool

• Children were disappointed when the bridge had to be removed

Session 6

Started off the same as all sessions, albeit quicker to gain the most we could out of our sessions. Children engaged and eager to take part in today’s session. 

Going on a bear hunt book was read in class - children able to identify similarities between the book and our walk to forest school. During circle time some children shared their experiences they have had on walks with family members and friends, gauging an idea of their home life and what outdoor time they have when not at forest school. As we walked through forest school we made up new verses to ‘Bear hunt’ to link it with our own walk and space. Children were engaged and enthused by this. 

Continued our work with wool and tying knots, encouraged the children to use larger sticks to make it easier to tie the knots themselves. Adults needed to help still, but encouraged the children first to try. Children created picture frames and although adults had to help with a lot of the knot tying, the children then enjoyed finding things to place inside their frames, very creative, some found things to put inside whereas others found footprints or something immovable and placed their frame on top.

Puppet finding - Children were looking for animals within our setting, therefore we placed animal puppets around the arena where their habitats would be for children to engage with them and use their imagination as if they were real and discuss their homes and where the are in the forest. A lot of children enjoyed and engaged with this, others were happy to continue with the more physical activities. 

Consideration for the next session:

• Continued interest in flora, fauna, birds and homes - use clay mud to mould nests and eggs

• Forecast to be cold - use to advantage of ice and frost hopefully

• Continue the development of interest in building bridges - any other options of how to build them?