Forest School Newsletter

Forest school is well underway at Surfleet, the children are making fantastic progress using tools, following rules and creating fantastic pieces of artwork using natural materials.

The children had 7 sessions outside in our forest area and they thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it.

The children have progressed through these sessions starting with simple games, to using real tools to make different products.

We have made jewellery using elder.  For this session, we used a pair of loppers and gimlets. Everyone worked extremely hard to push out the pith in the middle of the elder beads.

The children also had a turn to make bug shelters using natural materials.  During this session all children have shown excellent resilience and team work.  The children had the opportunity to use a mallet to put poles in the ground for a shelter.  I have witnessed excellent perseverance and strong arm muscles.

The children had to find minibeasts and examine them closer using magnifiers. They were fascinated seeing them close up and enlarged.

I must say that the highlight of our Forest School sessions was lighting a fire using the fire pit.

After the children collected the right sized fire wood, we lit the fire using the dragon’s sneeze.  We had three successful sessions with a lovely fire, where we toasted marshmallows, cooked some popcorn and   made yummy hot chocolate.

On our last session, all the children had an opportunity to use a bowsaw to cut and make a tree cookie. The children used a palm drill to make a hole to put their string through.  What fantastic cookies we have made!