Duke's Forest School

This week the children have performed their own acts of remembrance. They have all made their own woodland bloom,which they laid in the centre of the meadow area, followed with a minute’s silence.

The level of respect and reflection shown by the children was fantastic, after which some of the children chose to find their own special place in the woods to leave their flower.

The Y3/4 and Y5/6 have been undertaking some tricky challenges over the last 2 weeks. They have varied from escaping rope handcuffs to walking a slack line. The children have all responded well with excellent teamwork and have supported and encouraged each other incredibly.

The Y5/6 faced the challenge of building a freestanding shelter to keep all their group dry in the rain.I’m not sure whether they will fit all 6 of them in their shelters. But at least some would stay dry.

The Y3/4 as part of their topic work used elder to create their own wooden doll and jewellery in the style of the ancient Egyptian poor households.A couple of children also helped to light the fire and also used the fire steel to try and light a small fire.

Y5/6 took advantage of the great weather, some even had 40 winks at Forest school. They made their own hammocks before relaxing.

As part of the staff inset lots of the staff spent Friday afternoon in the woods. They had their own forest school session.

The children tried their hands at this strange artform, where flowers and leaves are placed between fabric and then beaten with a hammer, this releases the pigment which is then absorbed by the fabric.

Y3/4 had the challenge of building the highest tower using only arm sized sticks. They rose to the challenge using a Jenga technique topped off with an antenna. Fantastic team work and resilience when towers fell was shown by all the teams.

The children worked in groups to see who could make the longest length of nettle cordage. Fantastic cooperation and sharing of jobs to complete the task.

The reception classes made their own woodland superheroes. After which they took them on a woodland adventure.In the meantime some children enjoyed chilling in the improvised hammocks. A few wanted more mud, so had to work together to use the big heavy water barrel.