What has Year 1 been up to this term in Forest School?
We have been learning about butterflies and caterpillars, acting out their life cycle, looking for caterpillar holes in leaves, singing an insect song and we also made some bark rubbings, finding out about the different textures.
We found a mouse in its nest under the corrugated metal and Finley made a mouse trap. Jason, Albert and Oli love bug hunting and Casper made a drum kit from natural materials. Kavita enjoyed mushroom hunting and I had a great working group to add woodchip around the tree stems (Thank you Joshua, Zachary and Mason) . Forest School provides lots of child centred and self-chosen learning opportunities which is so important for their development.
In the second week we thought about feelings, read 'The colour monster' book and thought about what made us calm in nature. Everyone drew this on a piece of paper. Some planted seeds, we printed with stamps made from apples and some chose to use sticks for horses. The weather was very stormy so we had to move away from the trees, letting children think about their own safety.
Our final session was all about hedgehogs - we sang a song, played a hedgehog game where children had to curl up into balls, made clay hedgehogs and set up our new hedgehog house with food.
We checked the wildlife camera and so far we have had a cheeky cat trying to get to the food. We planted potatoes, read 'Big Hedgehog and Little Hedgehog take a stroll' , shared facts and enjoyed having time and space and the freedom to choose.
Have a fabulous Easter break
Year 1 Forest School Term 4 2025-2026
Mrs Pearman