This week it has been lovely to see our new and old children back after a brilliant Christmas week off; and I can assure you that the children slipped straight back into nursery life with ease.

On forest school we have been able to use a bow saw and hand drill this week; for some of the children this is the first encounter they would have had with a saw and drill. Over the holidays I was talking to someone about our children using tools, they couldn’t believe that they were allowed to do this. I think some peoples perspective on tool work is a toddler running wild with a saw being flung around above their head. Luckily this is not the case; all of our children understand the use of tools and what we should/shouldn’t do with them.

Once we finished our snack I introduced the saw and drill to the children, instead of telling them about the tools I asked them instead. What’s this bit called? Shall I touch this? This allowed the children to really think of the answer which I find will allow them to understand that little bit more.

After this I called one child at a time to use the saw, the children held the orange side of the handle and placed their other hand on the piece of wood (this gives them stability when sawing). I knelt the other side of the saw horse and guided the children on the motion of sawing. When the sawing had finished I sent the child over to Soraya, Nic or Tiff who then helped them drill a hole. It’s great to be able to use a hand drill but have you ever used one? They can be very hard to use sometimes!

So we had our name disc but no name yet; the children used the pen to do some mark making on the back of their name disc. The adults then wrote their names on the front and placed them around their head.

The children showed such pride and enthusiasm about their name disc and couldn’t wait to show their family. It was great to see this and made sawing and drilling 50 discs wort it.

Thanks for reading,

Lauren