Adventurers
2023-2024
Summer 2
17th July 2024
Today Tom and Dave came to visit us and teach us some basic first aid. They set up a space craft crash scenario and the children had to rescue casualties from difficult places, apply bandages to each other, create a stretcher to carry them to safety and then give CPR. They had an amazing time and hopefully will be prepared should they ever find themselves in a real life scenario that requires first aid.
19th June 2024
This week it was sports week and so we all had a go at some Forest School sports. First we threw wellies to see who could throw them the furthest. Next we had a horse race where we made long sticks into our horses and raced them down the track galloping along. Finally Year 6 did a tarpaulin race where they had to drag a member of their team along the race trac, swap people at the other end and race back again. We all enjoyed ourselves a lot and wanted to keep going with the horse racing!
12th June 2024
KS2 have been continuing with their Young Foresters Award this week by making a ‘dead hedge’ around an area of our site that they identified as suitable for setting aside for wildlife. They had lots of fun setting the foundations and then filling in the space with twigs and branches.
5th June 2024
Continuing with our Young Foresters Award we looked around our site to find a good spot that we could leave wild and add a dead hedge in front of to protect it. We identified 2 areas that would be good for this and made plans for any materials and branches that may need moving as part of this and where it will go. We thought that our area inside the willow fencing might make a good mindfulness area and started to plan the things we might put in there to help make it a calm and relaxing space as it is quite empty at the moment. We also realised that we did not know what sound a fox made and so we researched this and listened to an audio clip of a fox. We were quite surprised about the noise that it made.
Summer 1
22nd May 2024
Today we made leaflets on the computers to explain how to use the seed bombs that Inventors made and explain the importance of bees for the environment. We created some fantastic designs and learned how to use Publisher in the process.
8th May 2024
Today as part of the Junior Foresters Award Inventors had to find and identify a tree from a small cutting helped by some tree spotting guides. We then made Tree ID Jars to help the younger children to identify the trees.
1st May 2024
Today Adventurers started the first session of the Royal Forestry Society’s Junior Forester Award. They will learn all the skills they need to be a Junior Forester over the coming weeks and today they started by identifying the risks in our outdoor area and what we could do to minimise them in a balanced way. The children were quite aware of the risks and gave sensible suggestions of ways to ensure the risk was as low as possible.
Spring 2
20th March 2024
Today we talked about climate change. The children were surprised to find that penguins live in parts of Africa and South America as well as that parts of these countries were cool compared to what they had imagined. We played a game where we were penguins on shrinking ice caps, we had to stand on a tarpaulin and fold it in half without any of our teammates falling in the water.
6th March 2024
Today we got to enjoy our brand new benches purchased with the money raised from our Christmas decorations. We had a go at sawing and also measured and raced worms. ‘Jeremiah’ won travelling over a meter and leaving ‘Bernard’ at the starting post.
28th February 2024
Today we did some team building work with a technique called Nordic ‘slinging’ (or braiding). The children added weights to the end of lengths of yarn and swung them towards each other in a rhythmic pattern to make a beautiful patterned cord.
Spring 1
24th January 2024
We had intended to carry out the Big Schools Birdwatch today, however 39mph winds meant that it wasn’t really Birding weather. We decided to utilise the time by doing a survey of our grounds using the ‘Homes for Nature Scorecard’ from the RSPB to make sure we had the best things available and what we could add to improve. We found we had most of the things on the list and scored very highly thanks to the work of Miss Stanley and Mrs Abbott. We need to add a beetle bucket to score 100%.
17th January 2024
Today we made bird feeders melting fat on the fire and pouring it into moulds and adding bird seed. We are trying to encourage the birds to come ready for our RSPB big bird count next week.
10th January 2024
Today Hetty Hedgehog came to us telling us that her home had been destroyed in the recent storms and asked that the children make her a new one. We had a think about the sort of things she might need in a home. The children told Mrs Powell that Hetty should be hibernating and that she is nocturnal and should not be out during the day. They said that she would need a safe and secure home that was insulated, waterproof and windproof.
We also found an animal skeleton on the field. The children were fascinated to see what it looked like and after some investigation we found it was a rabbit skull.
Autumn 2
1st November 2023
Adventurers made a start on making some Gonks using macrame cord and wool. They showed good perseverance adding all the pieces to the hats. Next time we will add his nose and beard.
Autumn 1
18th October 2023
The children made some stars by tying 5 sticks together at the points and embellishing with coloured wool. It was a little bit challenging getting them all to sit together so they could be tied. Some children decided to make trees in the same way.
11th October 2023
It was a wet drizzly day today. We stayed in the outdoor classroom and had a go at painting conkers, making acorn buddies and conker comets. When the rain went off a little, Adventurers chose to play their favourite Forest School game "Wizards, Giants and Dwarves" and afterwards "What time is it Mr Wolf"
4th October 2023
Adventurers made a low ridge line shelter today. We had one piece of paracord, 4 tent pegs and a tarpaulin per group and used all the knots we had learned so far to put it together.
27th September 2023
Adventurers are learning about the maintenance and management of Forest School and taking responsibility for the equipment and tools. Today we got out some of the den building equipment and checked everything over making sure it was all in good condition for den building next session. We cut our paracord ready for A line shelters using a metre stick to measure.
20th September 2023
It was a very wet and windy day today so we decided not to risk falling branches and did some research inside for how we can improve our Forest School site. Some of the children thought that we needed to update our seating as our class numbers are growing and the logs we have are starting to decay. We came up with some really good ideas and drafted brilliant persuasive letters to give to Mrs Hunter in the hopes we could convince her our ideas were worth pursuing.
13th September 2023
For our first Forest School session we discussed all the things that we would like to do in the coming year and how we could improve our site as a class. We played one of our favourite games 'Wizards, Giants and Dwarves'
2022 - 2023
2021 - 2022
Adventurers walked down the lane looking at the wild flowers that grow there.
This term Adventurers have been making shelters using rope and tarps. They have been using the knots they practiced last term to hold the tarps in place.
Spring 2
This term Adventurers have been learning how to tie a selection of knots. First they looked at the timber hitch which can be used for pulling a log along the ground. The children had a race to see if their timber hitch would hold. They also practiced square lashing and then made frame for a bird hide, which all the KS2 children used in the RSPB bird count. Finally the children learned how to tie a sheer lashing. All of these knots will be used next term when they will be building dens.
Adventurers also learned how to identify native birds that they might find on our school grounds. They put this into practice when spotting birds for the RSPB bird count.
spring 1
