Forest School

The philosophy and roots of Forest School can be tracked back to various sources, linking way back to the 19th Century. This includes the ideas from educationalists such as Rosseau and Frobel, the woodcraft movements, the native Americans and the Quakers

In 1928, in the UK, a Forest School was formed in the New forest. The two founding organisations, ‘the woodcraft movement’ and ‘Forest school camp’ still exist today.

In the 1950’s the original Forest School concept with developed in Sweden. Children built self-esteem and independence through hands on play in a woodland setting. Scandinavia and other European countries developed this Swedish concept which was later established in Denmark in the 1980’s.

In 1993, a group of nursery nurse students and professionals from Bridgewater college, Somerset visited Denmark to observe Danish Forest School for themselves. They had discovered something so inspirational that they brought the concept back to Britain and set up the first British Forest school.

The focus of Forest School is reconnecting children with their local outdoor environment, giving them the space and freedom to discover, play, explore and learn within a natural outdoor setting.

At Mara Nursery we are so lucky that Victoria, our qualified Forest School Leader, spends two days a week with us.

She provides Monthly and Weekly sessions:

Monthly: Each month I will put together a mood board which shows ideas of the activities, themes, festivals and awareness days we will be focusing on this month. The mood board will be a combination of visual ideas and written guides to give an overview on what will be on offer.
Hopefully this will encourage the team to come up with their own ideas and collect resources which they can share with the children. The mood board can also be adapted and shared with families to encourage them to contribute by either bringing in resources or even coming in to offer their own experiences and skills (eg: cultural cooking).

Weekly: Each week I will put in place props and/or resources within the space ready for the week ahead. I will deliver workshops to the children, some of which I have outlined below.
These workshops will form a springboard for the rest of the team to take inspiration from during the rest of the day/ days. Each workshop will also provide an opportunity for me to guide staff members on how to interact with the children to get the best learning and growing experiences for the children (and hopefully make it an enjoyable experience for all)

These are the key areas that Victoria focus on with the children:

Seasons: Following the seasons will allow a natural rhythm and cycle to flow which mirrors what is happening in nature. The seasons will steer the resources and the vibe of content and activities. For example in autumn we will use fallen leaves, sticks, apples, conkers, spiders etc.

In summer; colourful flowers, grasses, sand, butterflies etc. In Winter we will forage for evergreens, berries, bare sticks, pinecones etc and in Spring, we will be looking for buds, eggs, spring pastel colours, soft textures like teasle, bulbs etc.

Festivals and awareness days: A way to celebrate and recognise our diverse community and raise the children’s awareness of different cultures and what is happening in the world around them, and the part they can play in it. We have a list of all the days we can recognise and we will offer activities based on these events. A few examples include for World Oceans day we can make a large mural using bottle tops and plastic waste. This can be made weatherproof outside.

On World Recycling Day, we can bring in recycling and make crisp packet crowns and capes, which the children can wear, raising their awareness of reusing and upcycling. For the festival of Martinmas (from the middle ages to celebrate the end of the harvest), it was traditional to sing a poem and carry lanterns. The children can make lanterns with little LED candle lights and then parade them around the nursery grounds when it gets dark, singing the poem.

Environment/space: Create a stimulating and creative environment that connects outside with indoors. The outside space is as important a classroom and learning space as indoors. The space organically grows as the children continue to add to it with their play and their creations.
The space at Mara will be different as limited with the area but we can make use of the row of trees, the fencing and even build little structures around the mud kitchen area to ensure the outside feels as important a play space and classroom as the inside. For The Nest, there’s so much potential to create a magical outside space!
Structures can remain throughout the season, such as Mandalas and giant weavings: Both these activities encourage focus and mindfulness as well as colour and pattern awareness.
Mandala can be made in a sand-pit like structure, as this will help protect it and also the children will see it as something they go to. Baskets of resources are scattered around to encourage the children to choose.
Trees can be used as a frame for weaving as well as a teepee like structure and/ or rugby post frame. Resources will be available for the children to learn to weave according to seasons, so in summer we can use bright fabric scraps, flowers, green leaves and in winter, evergreen branches etc.
Stick and resource piles - sticks will be an integral part of our everyday activities and we will always have plenty of natural resources available that the children have gathered. We can take the children on foraging walks outside of nursery to gather resources. This can be approached like a forest school session and field trip.
It addition to this there will be an ongoing and evolving array of arts, crafts and activities on display.

Workshops and activities
With all the activities, there are no rights or wrongs. It’s about how the children choose to interpret. We are there to facilitate the learning and provide encouragement. A blob to us, is a magical world to a child! It’s lovely to encourage the children to describe what they have created - would you like to name it? What is your favourite part? What did you enjoy most about making it? etc

Clay: Clay faces is an immersive and effective activity that I have delivered at festivals and school workshops with huge success. I will show the children how to squish the clay onto the trees and then it’s up to the children to find natural resources to decorate their clay creations. It brings the trees alive with wonderful characters and creations. We can create ideas and themes for the children to follow such as ‘scary faces and creatures’ for Halloween. For world forest conservation day we can make little woodland creatures and display them amongst the trees.
An important element is to encourage the children describe what they have created. Children love playdough, and this is nature’s version and can become a regular and integral part of the timetable.

Nature play: Workshops using natural resources and can include making musical instruments, nature crowns, journey sticks, mobiles etc. I have curated a Pinterest board with visual references to my ideas.

Arts and crafts: This will work alongside and intertwine with the nature activities. It will be a mix of individual pieces of crafts that we will hang and display in nursery (outside and in), as well as things they can take home. We will also do group work such as a large painting or tree bark rubbing, or a large wall mural or sculpture and also do more focused individual work, such as making little Diwali tea light holders they can take home.

Storytelling and drama: This is a wonderful way for the children to be physical and use their imagination. It can (weather permitting) use our outside play area as a stage or indoors. Sticking with the themes we are immersed in, the workshop will encourage imagination and self-expression. For example, for bonfire night, we will do a workshop where the children all become fireworks. What is it called? what sound does it make? what colour is it? how does it move? We do little drama-based activities around this theme. Each workshop ends with the children becoming an audience, and are read a story or we perform a short play for them as this allows them to witness theatre first hand (these are very simple and fun and can also involve the children.)