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Year 2 Forest School – Week 1 – September 2015
With the new Forest School procedures now in place the Year 2 children made their inaugural trips of the term. This would see two groups go on alternating weeks for the first seven weeks. The idea is to build upon the things they learn to help them recall and make use of these skills in years to come, especially as they go on up to KS2 and have more sessions in the woods in Y6. As Mr Blake’s Forest School work is assessed and passed back by his assessors, a handbook about what we do in Forest School will soon be available to view on the website.
During the first weeks the groups made adventure sticks! These were not any old sticks though, we talked about which sticks we could use so as not to irreparably harm trees. We used loppers (having a good tool talk beforehand) to cut the branches from some overgrown Sycamore specimens we know of and then used secateurs to trim them carefully. The children then had the opportunity to search their area of woodland to find things to tie onto their stick, be it a pine cone, a fern frond, an interesting leaf or a beech nut husk. This made each and every stick individual and many of the children showed great skill and perseverance to independently attach the items using either string or other means. Some sticks were hidden in the woodland den and others ended up making a den!
We finished the first session by showing the children how to put up the large shelter in case of bad weather. We talked about how it was good practice to put it up every session to become familiar with the knots needed and so that if and when we did need it ( and we almost certainly will!), we could get it up fast!
Overall it was a great first week for both groups of the Year 2 children, they showed a fantastic level of responsibility and maturity using the tools and long may that continue into the coming weeks.