Forest School: Blog items
Date: 3rd Mar 2021 @ 2:14pm
Over half term our Year 1 children received a little surprise in the post!
It was a lovely surprise to recieve a bean seed, a bean diary and a bean song! We had some great ideas about what we might be doing with our seeds, but we all waited patiently until our first science lesson to find out what we we're going to do with our beans!
We talked about how we were going to help our beans grow big and strong, and what scientific questions we could ask before following the instructions to plant our bean. We then sequenced the instructions we had followed in the correct order and started our bean diary with our initial observations!
Date: 2nd Mar 2021 @ 8:05pm
In PSHE we have been discussing looking after our environment. After looking at the amount of litter around the school, Year 6 stepped into action. We took a litter picker, a bin bag and spent a good hour cleaning up the rubbish around Boundary. We managed to collect 6 full bin bags worth of rubbish. Our message to people is to take your rubbish home with you or use a bin if there is one in the local area.
We will be working on letters to the council and local residents soon to discuss what we can do with not only the litter problem but the dog foul too as we found quite a lot of that!!
Date: 9th Dec 2020 @ 4:58pm
This week our Year 3 Eco Warriors planted some tree saplings in the Forest School area. Hopefully we will see them thrive and grow when we have our Forest school sessions in January. The children were very sensible although it was muddy! We have been talking about how we can take care of our environments both inside and outside of school and demonstrate responsibility by putting litter in the bin, taking our rubbish home from the park and ensuring that we are Eco friendly at home! All these things will help to improve and look after our planet.
It's been a busy week in Year 4!
Date: 4th Dec 2020 @ 10:57am
Wow what a busy week in Year 4! We had great fun at Forest School (pictures to follow next week, so keep your eyes peeled!). This week, we made our Design and Technology Toddler Nightlight prototypes. We are going to evaluate them so we can make a final design. Also this week, our Eco Warriors planted Oak tree saplings around the school grounds. We cannot wait to see them grow over the years.
Date: 1st Dec 2020 @ 10:27am
Last week, we started our first of three Forest School sessions. The children firstly gathered around the campfire to see if they could remember the Forest School rules - they were great! Then we had lots of time to explore our Forest School area and make nests. The children had to make a nest thinking about which animal it would be for and how it would keep their animal safe and warm in the cold winter weather. Next week, we are going to be lighting the fire and having s'mores and hot chocolate! We can't wait for them to keep us warm in the cold December weather.
Date: 19th Nov 2020 @ 8:28am
This week in Year Five, we have been participating in Forest School sessions and have loved learning how to build a fire (on which we then toasted marshmallows), den building and playing outdoor team games! On anti-bullying day, we discussed why we shouldn’t use stereotypes and make assumptions about people or unfairly judge people because of their appearance or ethnicity. We all wore odd socks to remind each other that it is ok to be different.
Date: 9th Nov 2020 @ 3:30pm
This week the children have been busy planting bulbs ready for Spring. They learnt which way round they should be planted in the ground and hopefully we should see crocus, tulips and daffodils blooming in our garden next year!
"You dig a hole in the ground then put the bulb in...flowers will grow" Oscar.
"...it goes this way round...this hairy bit at the bottom" Alfie.
Take a look at our photos!
Date: 5th Nov 2020 @ 8:27pm
We could not have picked a better day for our first Forest School session - bonfire night! We discussed fire safety and learned that fires need three elements to survive: heat, oxygen and fuel. With this in mind, we collected a variety of dry sticks and learned how to safely use a fire lighting steel. When the fire was lit, we toasted Marshmallows, which were delicious!
Date: 20th Oct 2020 @ 9:29pm
Everyone has been very busy weeding the raised beds and preparing the pots to plant bulbs in a few weeks time. The children worked together, sharing tools, digging and chatting about the different creatures they found living in the soil.
"Look! A worm! It's wriggling!" Amy.
"It's very long (worm)" Oscar.
Date: 14th Oct 2020 @ 4:36pm
Year 1 have had a brilliant Design and Technology journey this half term. They have made their own fruit salads! The were told they were going to a Tiger Tea Party. They had to design a healthy and colourful snack to eat at the tea party. They were going to go to the tea party with characters from a book they are reading. One of the characters, Sophie, asked that the children design and make a fruit salad. The children had lots of fun and even got to do some sensory evaluations tasting the food!
Date: 3rd Oct 2020 @ 6:08pm
In Year 1 this week we have been designing and making fruit salads.
We began the week by tasting and discussing lots of different fruit options that we may want to use in our fruit salad. We used our senses of smell, touch, sight and taste to evaluate a number of different fruits, and decide which ones were the best options! We were able to each choose 4 different fruits we want to use, which we then put onto our design. We completed our initial design sheet, where we drew pictures of each fruit and then our fruit salad, looking at the size, shape and colour of each to ensure our design was bright and colourful!
After tasting, choosing and designing our fruit salad, we then got to make our finished product! We began by putting 4 instructions in order that we needed to follow to ensure we created our fruit salad hygienically and safely. We then learnt about the bridge grip, and the claw grip that we needed to use to safely cut our fruit. Finally we washed our hands, and started to create our own, individual fruit salads!
After enjoying our delicious fruit salads, we then completed an evaluation to show our thoughts and feelings about our finished product. We discussed what we liked, what we didn't like, and what we might change if we were to create our design again!
Date: 1st Oct 2020 @ 3:55pm
Year 2 have had a fantastic day participating in Forest School! The children loved being outdoors and using their problem solving skills to build bridges, make secret potions and to simply just explore nature! We all had such a great time and we can't wait for more next week!
Date: 27th Sep 2020 @ 10:18pm
We are having so much fun getting to know each other and the children are starting to make friendships and everyones confidence is growing daily. This week we read the story "Owl Babies" and talked about feeling sad when our own Mummy's go. We discussed how we know that we are safe in Nursery and that our Mummy's will come back! We made some play dough owls, owl puppets, practised our funky fingers by catching worms with tweezers and practised our counting by putting 3 owls on a tree.
As well as lots of owl fun, we also worked together this week to build dens. The children found some sticks and said they were going to make a camp fire. We talked about when you might use a camp fire and this opened up a lovely discussion about camping. We gathered together lots of resources and built some lovely dens for camping!
What a busy and fun week!
Date: 16th Mar 2020 @ 9:53pm
Year 2 spent the day discussing the impact of global warming and how it effects our environment. The children then looked at the dangers of plastic swimming around our oceans and the problem it poses to all livings things. We then explored ways we can help reduce the amount of waste we use and how important it would be for animals, natural environments and habitats. Later on the children created starfish out of recycled materials, as you can see from their designs they did a fantastic job. Well done Year 2.
Date: 13th Feb 2020 @ 8:12pm
We had a very muddy but fun forest school session this week. We explored natural and man made materials. We worked as a team to build and light a campfire then prepared jam doughnuts to cook. We sang songs around the campfire while they coked then ate them and they were delicious.
Eco Warriors - Nursery Children helping to save our future planet!
Date: 13th Feb 2020 @ 12:37pm
This week we have taken part in lots of recycling activities. Firstly, we talked about how to look after our planet and the importance of recycling. This linked to our previous knowledge of Eco Bricks, as we have been building them as part of a whole school project for the last few months. As part of our BLT for last week we were asked to either start to make our own Eco Bricks or bring some plastic bits and pieces into Nursery. Lots of children brought in bits to help us on our school project of making Eco Bricks. Our teachers in Nursery then cut up the big bits of plastic into smaller bits so we could use a long stick to push the bits of plastic into the bottles. We have also made pictures and models from recycled bits, along with cleaning out our water tray after someone had put a lot of plastic in there! We all enjoyed learning about how and what we can recycle, and how we can look after the planet for our future.
Date: 7th Feb 2020 @ 11:51am
Year three did a wonderful job for their year group assembly. We want to make an impact to our environment and what better way than inform the parents about our ECO BRICKS! These are the way we are able to reuse the non-recycling plastics and stop them going in to the oceans. Please see our Facebook page to find out how to make them! Thank you to all the parents for your continued support.
Date: 9th Jan 2020 @ 4:07pm
What a fantastic afternoon we had exploring our new Forest School Area. We made 'fat balls for the birds', pretended we were squirrels and hid food ready for hibernation and built shelters that we could hide in. However, I think for most of us our favourite part was getting as muddy as possible and jumping in all the mud puddles!
Date: 20th Dec 2019 @ 2:28pm
We took part in our second Forest School session this week, and it was possibly even more enjoyable than our first! Although this time it wasn't raining, the ground was still wet and muddy with the previous days rain! We joined with Reception in the woodland area for both our morning and afternoon sessions. This week we started the session by using 'Fire Steels' to try and make 'sparkles!' This took great deal of motor skill development and perseverance! We each had a turn to try and make 'sparkles,' some of us independently, some of us with a little help! Our Forest School teacher then showed us how to use the tools we had to make sparks to set some cotton wool on fire. We talked about how we need to keep safe around fire. Once the fire was lit in the fire pit, we then each had a turn at cooking a marshmallow! Again, with help from the adults, each of us had the opportunity to poke a marshmallow onto a wooden stick, then move over to the fire to toast it! We then blew on the marshmallow 10 times, to ensure it was cool enough to eat, before we enjoyed them! We then read a story together, about different animals bottoms! Exploring the woodland area, we then matched poems and pictures to the different animals they could belong to. We all enjoyed another successful Forest School session!
Date: 6th Dec 2019 @ 8:09pm
Nursery enjoyed our first Forest School session this week! We had very different weather for our morning and afternoon sessions, however the sessions were enjoyed equally by all children! Firstly we got ready into our waterproofs, talking about what we thought might be in store for us! We were very excited to leave the Nursery environment and venture into the Forest School area. We started off the session by exploring the environment, ensuring we all followed the rules to keep each other safe! We then searched around the area to find items of interest to start the outdoor Christmas Tree. Being especially careful, we were then taught how to use the hammer and nails, and we all took turns to hammer the items we had found onto the wooden branches. Some of our children were especially interested in a 'well' in the ground, which they decided housed 'poisonous worms!' We are all looking forward to our next Forest School session!
The One Where Year 6 Do Forest School!
Date: 1st Nov 2019 @ 9:55am
Wow - what a day we had during our forest school session! We started off our session by gathering the resources around the outdoor area to create a spooky structure (Halloween style). We had to work in groups to show our team-building skills and we had to use our imagination to come up with a creative design. Finally, we finished our session by sitting around the campfire fire - we drank delicious hot chocolate and tested out our singing skills as we sang some fun campfire songs. We thoroughly enjoyed our session and we can't wait to see what is in store for us in our next session!
Date: 17th Oct 2019 @ 4:00pm
Every half term, children in Boundary will be learning about an area of Eco. Eco is short for ecological which means the relations of living organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings. Year three's theme this half term was Climate Change. Children watched videos, played games and created a poster to demonstrate awareness of how we need to change the way we are to help our planet.
Date: 30th Sep 2019 @ 7:00pm
Despite the mud and soggy grass, we had a great time in our Forest School area. We split into teams and were set the challenge of building a tower from anything natural that we could find. The team with the tallest would be crowned the winner!
Date: 23rd Sep 2019 @ 8:06pm
Year 5 have been making full use of Boundary's new Forest School area during our outdoor lessons. As well as problem solving skills, we have learned how to safely light fires, hunted for bugs, toasted marshmallows and sang songs around the camp fire. We can't wait for our next Forest School lesson, this Thursday!
Date: 1st Jul 2019 @ 8:14pm
Our second Forest School session saw much better weather as the sun shone down on us all. This week, children enjoyed more digging (along with lots of water and lots of wet, muddy mud!!). Children also had the chance to use tools to build a mud kitchen as well as lighting fires and toasting marshmallows. We are all thoroughly enjoying our time in the Forest School garden.
