Wow, what a FABULOUS half term back in the woods it has been! Time really does fly when you are having fun!!

This half term the Oaks have started their Forest School journey with activities like making a potion, Journey sticks, Nature Bracelets and colour match activity! They have all done amazing and I am incredibly proud of them all!!

Willows have been amazing too!! They had a 2 hour forest school session as part of their Marvellous middle! We had a fire to link in with their literacy of the Great fire of London. We made marshmallows, drank hot chocolate and even cooked popcorn on the fire too! They also built dens, did a journey stick and digging as part of the topic 'Where my trainers take me'. It was such great fun!!

Chestnuts have been amazing too! Making dens and using the tools.

Ash have been just as busy with more structured activities of play Ranger Sansom's Treasure Stash game. I had lots of treasure, forest related, they were split into teams they had to send one person at a time to look at my treasure, remember it, run back to tell their team and then send another person. This sounds simple enough but to add to the game they had me guarding my treasure so I was flapping my arms about to distract them! Great fun! Also we did a great tie dye session with blackberries. The results were amazing! Look at pictures on our facebook page.

As a school to mark National Forest School Day we made a bug hotel! Oaks chose the location and stacked the pallets, Willows put in bricks, roof tiles, straw, pine cones and odd bits of wood, Chestnuts named it, designed a sign for it and added decorations and Ash chopped bamboo, put it in, added grass and sticks and then decorated it more! The bug hotel has been name as "Bug Shack" after the B52's song "Love Shack!". Brilliant!!!  I look forward to seeing what happens and if we get some resident bugs move in over before the winter!

Have a wonderful half term and I look forward to the next half term. The season will really be turning from Autumn to winter so warm clothes will be needed. 

Ranger Sansom X

Hi everyone

Well, this is my final blog for this school year, our second year of forest school and what a fabulous year it has been! I have witnessed some incredible things from your wonderful children. They have all been so imaginative and engaged in their own activities. There has been a massive improvement of their tool skills (digging, whittling, bowsaws and for the older ones Billhook to make mallets), fire skills (practising lighting the cotton wool and when assisting with the Kelly Kettle), den building skills (using sticks and tarps. Year 6's also had a time where they enjoyed building dens using off cuts of wood and a pallet!), strengthening their gross motor skills on the slackline, they have been using the long rope to make their own swings, zip lines and ladders, imaginative in using pipes to create water systems, we have also been graced by some performances of shows of things the children in Willows have learnt in school like St George and the dragon, we even had a nativity in June with a pagatis came to visit baby Jesus and have made excellent use of nature when being creative with art and role play. They have loved making a variety of things from mud like animals, cups, pots, spoons, pictures, mud faces on trees and pictures, crowns and even books. They all, done so well! Well done to them all!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the year 6's all the very best for the future and with their next step onto Secondary school! I am sure you will all love it!!

I also can't wait to see all the children who are still at Thurleigh plus the new ones as we head into year 3 of forest school. I am so excited to see what they get up to!

Hope you have a wonderful summer,

Ranger Sansom

It felt great to be back in the woods after our Easter break. I loved hearing about what the children had been up to and of all the Easter eggs they received! 

This half term our focus is that in small groups of 4 we will be doing the Kelly Kettle! This is one of my favourite activities and not just because we get to enjoy hot chocolate at the end. I love the challenge of it and how we have to work as a team to feed the fire keeping it going. The first 4 groups from each class all did amazingly well especially the Ash class group where we managed to keep the fire going and boil the kettle within 10 minutes! That is a personal best for me. I was as excited as the children!

On Wednesday the usual fabulous activities were going on like tool work, digging, den building and being creative in the wood small group of children in Willows made swords with sticks and created a play for us to watch at the end of the session about St George. This is something they have worked on in class and heard about in assembly. I love how the children independently bring their classroom learning outside! 

On Thursday the wind started to pick up just before our forest school session so for safety reasons we were unable to have forest school in the woods but that did not stop us! We brought our shoe lace practice shoes, tarp, a load of wood off cuts, a pallet, rope and rigger gloves onto the field. I was blown away at their creativity of using the wood to make dens, parachutes to run with and a maze for a small animal. Amazing! Luckily, the fire square is in a safe position for the Kelly kettle to go ahead and the blood bubble for toolwork. 

A fabulous way to start back and can't wait to see what they come up with next week as we look at World Earth Day which is tomorrow (22nd April).

Welcome back for more exciting Forest School news.

The last couple of weeks, there has been some fun activities as well as the usual forest school fun available where we have focused on Children's Mental Health week. Your lovely children have been hugging trees, some of chestnuts and Ash even measured our big Ash tree to calculate the age which was over 200 years old, took a stone on a journey around the field on the back of their hands where a lot of concentration and focus was needed plus attempting to untangle themselves from the human knot where lots of communication was required as they had to keep their hands held together.

The very last week was all about Fire and marshmallows where small groups came out to enjoy the warmth of the fire, watch the flames and to toast a marshmallow, to their preferred state to then consume. 

I hope all the children have a lovely half term and I look forward to seeing them back in our woods for more forest school fun!

It's been a wonderful last few weeks enjoying our beautiful wood in Forest School. 

We have really felt the weather change turning from Autumn to Winter so quickly. We have experienced many weathers of wind, sun, rain and for the last week, frost.

Oaks are really starting to get into the routine of Forest School as they have moved on from whole group activities to having a couple of choices during their sessions. They have also begun den building with sticks plus digging activities where they have made mud paint. In the New Year they will begin using tools to whittle which is very exciting! 

Willows, Chestnuts and Ash, as always, have blown my mind every week with their creativity. There have been swings made, leaf angels made, trees climbed, leaf printing with mud, and that's to name a few!

As this last week is in the lead up to Christmas there have been some Christmas activities as an option for them. Some have made a Christmas tree decoration, whittled a Santa and attempted to build a life-size model of Santa's sleigh with sticks and tree stumps! It's been great fun!

I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and look forward to seeing the children all in the New Year with their waterproofs, warm clothing and wellies!