Year 5 Forest School

Week 1

After wrapping up warm, we ventured out into the cold afternoon.  Our task today was to use our problem solving and teamwork skills to set trails using a key and natural objects.  This took patience and time but once our trails were set and tested, the other groups had to see if they could follow them. We are pleased to report that they all worked!

Week 2

Another VERY cold afternoon, however we are made of tough stuff!!! (We don’t seem to feel the cold as much as the grown ups who accompany us!).

We were inspired by the art of Andy Goldsworthy, who creates art from natural materials.  Since there is not much colour around in our forest area at the moment, we decided to make use of the most plentiful resource there…STICKS!  We made giant twig skeletons, take a look at how they turned out.

We also whittled some willow, ready to make drawing charcoal when we have our fire in a few weeks time.

Weeks 3 & 4

We have taken part in carousel activities at Forest School activities over the last two weeks.

  • Measuring the height of a tree

  • Meeting a tree

  • Spotting signs of Spring & twig identification

  • Web of life game

  • Fungi spotting

We tried various methods to measure the heights of the trees in our school grounds, we got numerous combinations of answers. Why don’t you ask us if we can tell you why we think the measurements were not accurate?

We had to put great trust in our partner for the ‘meet a tree’ activity, because we were blindfolded and led around the forest to explore individual trees.  We then had to see if we could identify the trees from their characteristics once the blindfold was removed.

The weather on week 3 compared to week 4 could not have been more different…We are beginning to see signs of Spring!

Weeks 5

Spring is approaching! To keep moving and warm today we decided to work as teams to build giant birds nests. We now have much more respect for the birds…it was HARD!

Our challenge was to build a nest big enough for our whole team and with sides tall enough to stop us (the chicks) falling out.  Do you think we succeeded?

Some of us created pieces of natural art instead, using natural materials.

Week 6

Our Favourite week arrived…FIRE

We thoroughly enjoyed marshmallows and popcorn!