Apricot Forest School

 

At Forest School, Apricot Class listened to the 

story ‘The Amazing Mud Cake’. The boy in the story,

 Olli, had made a special mud cake for his family, but he

 felt disappointed when they didn’t enjoy it. The next day,

 however, Olli was delighted to discover that while his family 

hadn’t liked the mud cake, the mini beasts of the forest

had eaten it all up!Inspired by the story, the children set to

work making 

their very own mud pies for the mini beasts. They mixed mud 

and water, and decorated their creations with sticks, stones, 

leaves and other natural treasures they could find.

The children also collaborated on some large-scale art by

 brushing powder paint onto wet sheets. This created beautiful,

colourful patterns. 

At Forest School, our focus was on natural art. We 

began by discussing all the different colours we can see 

in nature. The children then listened to the story Up, Up in 

the Tree and signalled by placing their hand on their head 

whenever they heard a colour mentioned.

Some of the colours we noticed in the story were an orange 

fox, black ants, pink flowers, and green leaves.

After the story, the children were encouraged to create 

their own pieces of art. They were given several options, including:

Drawing with natural mark-making materials such 

as chalk and charcoal, creating pictures of trees, animals, and flowers.

Sticky art, where they collected natural objects from

 around the site and arranged them on a piece of cardboard to

 make textured artwork.

When the children had finished, their creations were proudly 

displayed in our very own Forest School Gallery, where we could 

all admire and celebrate their work.

The children were very excited to learn that we

 would be having a fire at Forest School this week. 

Before lighting the fire, they were taught how to stay

 safe around it, including practising the ‘respect position’

 (one knee up and one knee down).

The children shared what they already knew about fires.

 I then explained that for a fire to burn, three things

 are needed — fuel, heat, and oxygen. If one of these is

 missing, the fire will go out. Today, our fuel was wood, 

the heat was created by sparks from a flint and steel, 

and the oxygen came from the air all around us,

even though we can’t see it.

All the children enjoyed toasting a marshmallow over

 the fire. They then sandwiched their marshmallow

 between two chocolate biscuits to make delicious s’mores, 

accompanied by some warm hot chocolate.

This was our last Forest School session for a while,

 but I’ll see the children again after February half 

term for their second block of sessions.

Kindest regards, 

Kate