More on UK Forest Schools

Round House
The outside of the round house just looks like a tent.  Honestly, no big deal.  But knowing how it was constructed, is actually the big deal.  The children decided where to put it.  They helped dig the holes for the main poles.  I believe Mike fashioned the support beams. Then the children helped put on the tarp.  But wait, there is more! On the inside they put in battery operated twinkle lights and hung pine cones for added festive decorations.  It was so magical in there.  As you can see, I was even caught up in the magic. (Plus it was warm in there).

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Digging Space
As always, children love to dig… why, I have no idea, but I fancy myself as a rather good digger as well. They have two pits for the children to dig.  They use real spades because the plastic ones 1) are bad for the environment, and 2) why not give them real tools to do their real work (remember, their play is their work).  While we were there we hear a cry for help from one of the instructors.  I scooted over there to find a child who she pulled from the muck, however the child’s boot was stuck four inches deep.  With a schlooooooop! I was able to retrieve the boot and the child went on her marry way.
 

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​Work Area
The have a table space which is a log sliced in half. The day we visited the children were working on bird feeders to help the birds who might find it difficult to find food during the winter months. _side bar_ This is what I have been talking about.  This small project creates a tiny spark in the young children to be stewards of nature.  Goodness knows that nature has been taken advantage of in the past, so instilling in children to be keepers of this planet is such a good thing.  Sorry, to all you testing fans, but you will not find that on any standardized test or rubric, but I think it is a very important lesson, none the less.  However, what I noticed was the rich vocabulary that was encouraged as the children describe with it felt like to spread the lard over the pine cone and how it would help the environment.
 
The round things the children are working on are tree trunk slices.  They were cut from a fallen tree and then painted with chalkboard paint.  The children use them as old timey slates for writing, drawing, and writing numbers.  Here they are using them as a workspace.

​Fairy Doors
Imagination at work.  There were 5 random tiny doors placed around the space of the Forest School.  The children let me by hand to each location.  When asked what was behind the door, I was told of all sorts of creatures from fairies to small dragons.  The doors opened to worlds beyond ours and the children each had details to add.  It was like cooperative story telling.  To throw in the educational value of this, they were expanding their vocabulary, using descriptive words and language. (yeah, you would not find that level of creativity from a worksheet, just saying)

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Movable Logs
OK, so you might think, "big deal logs, whatever!"  However, out here in the Forest School, these are teaching tools.  They work on shapes.  The children construct the shapes, I imagine they also discuss spacial terms such as inside, on, by, near, around, outside, because they can actually, physically do those things around their constructions.   With these logs the children also make things, like the shape of a house or design a path, or work on letters.  But in the process the children work together, have deep conversations, are working on gross motor skills, and are keeping their imagination active.  I would also believe that you could do physical math games as well.  What do I mean, ok so .... two children in the square, plus three children in the triangle equals....  They become the objects to count... if you wanted to you could put in sticks or leaves.  Dude, I got a million ideas... only ZERO worksheets, so yeah, there is that.
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