1.2- Assignment (unit 3): Explain how learning theory has been applied to own Forest School sessions/experiences

My chosen theories as discussed before were The Experiential Learning Cycle - David Kolb and Jean Piaget’s theory of play including Vygotsky’s ZPD.

How we implement this within our Forest School Sessions.

When we are planning our forest school sessions, we ensure that there is flexibility within the plan, this allows the children to create their own activities and play and build on experience that they may have started to develop from the previous sessions.

Den Building -Using the Piaget four stages of cognitive development, the age group that I have in my group sessions (5-7) would be within the preoperational stage. The age group focuses on the huge development for the use of language, images and ideas enhancing imaginative play and communication. Allowing the children to experiment with den building, creating new ideas, shapes and having to work within a pair or group, opens up the communication within the Forest School community. Allowing the children to design and work out the dynamics of the group allows the children to begin to see situations from the perspective of other people and work through misunderstandings and conflicts. We are also mindful of the learning cycle during this activity, as most children, most weeks, like to experiment and build a den at some point during the session, therefore, with each session, they are building on experience and reflecting on their last experience and adapting and growing with each session.  We are also able to use the scaffold theory along with den building, as a leader we can initially demonstrate how to position the sticks or tie knots, gradually reducing assistance as the child gains confidence and competence.

Weaving boards - During one session, we have made some small weaving boards, the children were then allowed to collect anything from the floor, or pick one leaf from a tree or plant (along with other items off the floor) to weave into the board and come back to base camp to discuss our findings. The children were very hands-on with this activity, they enjoyed being able to discover different items and explore the space far and wide to try and find something no one else had. This was created with the theory in mind that we should incorporate activities that promote symbolic thinking, when the children were asked to place their items in the weaving board, we asked them if they could make them into a picture, or spell something out with the items, many children tried to recreate a tree, using a twig as the trunk and then having greenery or ground leaves sprouting out the top. At the end of the session, we were able to come back together and reflect on what the activity has managed to create for us, having the children name the items they have found, what they managed to create and appreciate that everyone had managed to create something different and no two children had the same creation. This can allow the children to understand their surroundings and reflect on the impact they can have on the outdoor space. 

Storytelling - Piaget’s cognitive development focuses on for our age group that we should try and promote symbolic thinking such as storytelling, role playing and drawing. For one of our sessions we read a book previous to attending the Forest School, then on the walk to the site we discussed the book as we walked and looked for similarities from the book that we had on our own walk. This particular book we read ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ meant that we could have the children relate the information from the book into our own session. ‘Uh oh, mud…we can’t go over it, go can’t go under it’ On our walk to the space, there is quite a lot of mud, so when we approached a particularly muddy space, we repeated these words and allowed the children to feel as if they were in the story and had to take part in the bear hunt, this is fantastic for promoting imaginative play and communication. 

Using Vygotsky’s Learning theory as a bases for planning, we can concentrate on his main points:

Concrete Experience - By allowing the children to gain new experience or reinterpreting an existing one allows the children to create new ideas,gain an understanding of the activity and either learn something new or build on from previous experience. We can use this example for planning within our bug hunting experience. Some children had not done bug hunting and wasn’t sure how to carry this out, with using scaffolding and allow the children to discover for themselves how they could go about this, or asking their peers to help them they managed to gain new skills and experience something new, using scaffolding, we were then able to enhance the children’s bug hunting experience by teaching them that looking underneath logs or rocks would allow them to find more species of bugs, whilst making sure they are aware of the impact they may have and how important it is to return the items back to their original space.

Reflective Observation - At the end of each session, we sit at base camp and go around to every child and ask if there is anything they would like to share within the group, this could either be something they have found fun for that day, something they have discovered or possibly just how they were feeling.  This allows the individual child to reflect on their own experience, but also allows children to hear how others have found the session.  Due to the ethos of Forest school being child led, although all the children are in the same session, it could be a very different experience for each child.  We found that by having reflective time, it allowed children to learn different activities that they could try for the following sessions, also as a leader allowed us to understand where the wants and needs were within the group for us to enable the activities for the following session. 

Abstract Conceptualization - Using our reflection time, as mentioned before, the children are able to form new ideas for activities and experiences and learn from others how they may need to modify an existing idea and how to build on to it. As leaders we can listen during reflection time and have an understanding of what the children would like to build on and how we are able to help, therefore being able to supply any resources they may need. 

Active Experimentation - Forest school is heavily child-led, therefore during reflection time, or the beginning of a session when discussing the possibilities of the activities for that day, we as leaders are very eager to say yes! A child in our group asked ‘Could we build a bridge that 2 children can walk over at the same time?’ As a leader we run the risk management and understand that under supervision this would be a great activity for them to experiment with. The children then as a group started to think about what they had to do, what they learnt from their previous bridge building and were able to come up with a design that did in fact manage to hold a few children at one time. 

Vygotsky’s theory creates the meaning that the adult is not the director but as a facilitator of learning. As a leader we must observe and understand each child's individual ZPD (Zone of Proximal Development) providing the right support and challenge them to progress, I truly believe we do this within our sessions. Each session we progress and challenge the children to a little bit more, if we observe the same children taking part in the same activities, we either try and encourage them to try some completely different, or if we understand that the child may not be able to cope with a big change, we can set them a small challenge within their chosen activity and enhancing their play and growth, which will also enhance their self-esteem. 

By integrating Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s theories into Forest school sessions, the learning experience becomes more personalized, collaborative and supportive, allowing children to reach their full potential in a natural and engaging environment.