Year 4 Forest School
While the Year 3s were away at Bushcraft this week, the Year 4s stayed at school and did Forest School! We had a jam-packed couple of days, including: tree identification, mini-beasts, bird feeders and grass whistles! Read on to find out more…
On Thursday, the children learnt about different types of trees and how you can identify trees by looking at their leaves. First, we took a walk around the school field, looking at the variety of trees. We found an oak, a hawthorn, a horse chestnut, a silver birch, apple trees and willow trees. After, we ventured into our forest school area. We noticed a lot of changes since we last visited: the grass had grown (a lot!); there were a lot of overgrown nettles and the trees were full of fresh green leaves! We re-assessed any new dangers that there might be before we started our learning. This meant that we could keep ourselves safe while exploring. After this, we identified the trees in the forest school area: we even found some holly, a sycamore and some cherry trees this time!
After, we played a game of chaos tag. The children love this game as everyone is ‘IT’ at the same time. Once the game had finished, I asked the children to collect some different types of leaves from around our forest school area and the school field. When, they had, they used these to make their own pieces of artwork with Mrs Baxter and Mrs Wain:
In the afternoon, we played a game of ‘Predator’ where the children had to hide without getting seen. They loved this game and it really got their adrenaline going! After the game had finished, the children were asked to collect a range of sticks, dry grass and other items from around the forest school area to use the next day to build dens. They found so many great sticks and logs that had been hidden by the trees and grass! The children also found some pinecones. We ended the day with a story and a hot chocolate.
On Friday, we were focused on all the small things that we might see outside. First, we did a minibeast hunt, we found all sorts of creatures! Including: woodlice, ants, ladybirds, centipedes, earwigs, spiders, beetles, worms, snails, slugs, a small dragonfly, a tiny grasshopper and even a frog! We then played a game of ‘Sardines’ on the field, where one person hides and everyone else has to find them - the opposite of ‘Hide and Seek’! After the game, we went on a scavenger hunt – looking for anything tiny and pretty that we thought would look nice framed! The children found all sorts, including: tiny flowers, tree seeds, petals, feathers, grass seed heads and different types of tiny leaves.
After this, the children made pinecone bird feeders with Mrs Baxter and Mrs Wain – using the pinecones they found the previous day. When the pinecones had run out, the children made them out of rings of cardboard. After, they hung them up around the forest school area for the birds to use!
In the afternoon, the children built their dens using the sticks and logs they had found the previous day – I was so impressed by their creativity and teamwork! They used the dried grass to fill in the gaps to try and make them more waterproof! One of the groups even got to test theirs out when it started to rain! We found the biggest den for us all to take shelter under and had our hot chocolates and biscuits in there!
After, the children used the ‘pretty items’ that they had found in the morning to create their very own natural artwork with Mrs Baxter and Mrs Wain:
NB: As we were in two groups, some of the children did these activities in a slightly different order! 😊