At Yealand Church of England Primary School outdoor education is a key part of our timetable. Living in such beautiful surroundings, the children are in the enviable position of being able to take full advantage of our own forest school site. We use the site all year round, in all weathers. Our children are given the time and space to develop skills, interests and understanding through a range of activities which provide hands-on experiences in a natural environment. Anything from making flower crowns and building dens are on the menu for our younger children whilst our older children experience using tools, practicing knots to cooking on the campfire.
Every season our EYFS and KS1 children are given the opportunity to explore and observe the seasonal changes from what we have to wear down to how our woodland has changed. Our KS2 children are also given the opportunity to develop their tool and orienteering skills throughout the seasons.
Autumn
In Autumn, we love to explore the ever-changing colours of our woodland. We take part in Autumnal nature art, identify and name the fallen leaves as well as making things to sell at our annual Christmas Fair. Our older children get to use tools or enhance their knot skills to sell a product.
Winter
In Winter, we love to look at how our woodland has changed. We love looking at the bare trees as well as our beautiful evergreen trees that are green all year round! This is a great time of year to build shelters so we can (hopefully) keep dry and play inside them and drink hot chocolate to keep us warm! Our younger children always make and distribute some bird feeders to help the birds through winter! We also get the opportunity to put up our canopy as well as lighting our fire to have make/eat some tasty treats!
Spring
In Spring, we love to explore our every changing woodland for new signs of life. We love using tools to print natural materials and our younger children are often seen being nature detectives with a magnifying glass in hand to spot the many minibeast that live in our woods.
Summer
In the Summer, we enjoy being outside in the ‘warm’ weather; making dens for shade; playing lot’s of games to build on our building, problem solving and team building skills. We love to make new homes for the animals as well as completing lots of nature hunts.
Forest school As an Official Forest School why not become a Forest School Family – sign up and receive lots of ideas to help your family get outdoors!