Where to start! The children at St Stephens Junior School are in their second week of Forest School and have already grasped the concept with open arms.  After a few rounds of sneaky snake as a warm up, we launched into a whole range of intrinsically motivated activities!  Big words which basically mean the children new exactly what they wanted to learn. Before we’d even started, many of the children had told us what they had planned for the session.

Activities that were a big hit today were: bird watching, bug hunting, tree climbing, digging for treasure, rope acrobatics, fire starting, rope swing, hammock and building a home for Basil! It seems we’ve covered most basis this week.

We also spent some time teaching the children various knots, including an over hand knot, a figure of eight and a figure of eight on the bight. All useful for our various activities in the woodland.

Some children wanted to use the bow saw again and then used a hand drill to add holes to a wood cookie. They then added twine to make a spinning toy.  The smiles on the faces generated by something so simple was quite extraordinary (ipads can’t do everything!).

So that just leaves us with quote of the day:

“This is amazing! I’m never going to miss Forest School, even if I’m ill!”