What Happens at Forest School?

At Conquer The Woods Forest School children develop their skills of teamwork, cooperation, listening and observation.

A typical start to the day may involve recapping safety rules, setting up camp, laying a fire (if needed) and putting up a shelter.  Forest school activities are child led, so we allow children to choose activities from a selection of activities on offer.

Being outdoors offers opportunities for doing things in different ways and on a different scale. Here are a few specific outdoor learning activity ideas linked to the Forest School approach:

• Build and learn to cook on an open fire
• Learn to identify trees and plants and examine the shape, smell, sound and surface of various trees
• Create dens, shelters, bridges and sculptures
• Collect colours from nature
• Make art from natural products (twigs, leaves and stones) and draw and engrave using natural materials
• Create a woodland assault course for a squirrel
• Hunt for mini-beasts in trees, bushes, deadwood etc
• Create a bug hotel
• Climb trees
• Develop the ability to observe silently -to look and hear what’s happening around them

This environment allows a huge amount of learning to take place outside of the classroom, and gives plenty of opportunities  to develop curriculum subjects such as English, Maths, Science, DT, PSHE and PE