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Welton Free Rangers - Forest School Nursery

The Mill Barn, Millards Hill
Midsomer Norton, Banes, BA3 2BW
+44 (0)1761 411328
Holistic Experimental Learning

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Welton Free Rangers - Forest School Nursery

  • Home
  • WHO WE ARE
    • OUR HISTORY
    • Our Story So Far
    • THE SITE
    • FOREST SCHOOL
    • Policies & Documents
    • Our Staff
  • WHAT WE OFFER
    • Session Times
    • Clubs and Courses
    • Fee Structure
    • FAQs
    • Early Years Entitlement
    • Tapestry
    • Free Rangers Nursery App
  • MAGAZINE
    • About Free Rangers Magazine
    • Buy Digital Copy
  • OUR BLOG
  • Our Shop
  • Food at Free Rangers
  • Contact Us

Goodbye from Katie!

June 11, 2015 Katie Fletcher

This is just a small blog post saying that I will sadly be leaving Free Rangers. For those of you who aren’t aware, at the end of June I will have completed my Level 3 Apprenticeship. I joined Free Rangers to gain my qualification and the time has come for me to develop my career further and gain experience within other settings.  My last day will be 30th June 2015.

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In The Den, Free Rangers Forest School
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Using Loppers!

May 23, 2015 Lauren

This week in Forest School has been a little more exciting than normal, we have been able to use Loppers! Lou (from the Warren) did our planning this week and thought it would be a really good idea to test the children’s gross motor skills using their strength and grip!

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In Free Rangers Forest School
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Flower Power!

May 8, 2015 Lauren

Hello all, I hope you have had a lovely week enjoying the cold mornings but warm afternoons (British weather!!). Last week the Nest had laminated flowers and placed them on the window that looks into the Burrow, I and Nic said what a lovely idea it was and it made me think of our Forest School session next week!

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In Free Rangers Forest School, The Burrow
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New friends mean new memories

May 2, 2015 Lauren
View fullsize DSCN1543.JPG
View fullsize DSCN1544.JPG

Welcome back after the Easter break, I hope you all had a lovely time off. Last week on Forest School we used our surrounding environment with our new and old friends, seeing what we can see and searching for different adventures, such as looking for chickens, walking along different paths etc.

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In Free Rangers Forest School
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See how strong I am?

April 29, 2015 RedFox
Strength and Cooperation. Learning and playing together through self discovery. Is there anything better? 

Strength and Cooperation. Learning and playing together through self discovery. Is there anything better? 

When you ask a child: who thinks they are strong? you will without doubt be faced with the smallest line up to the Mr/Mrs Universe contest, as they flex their muscles and faces in a visual show of their perceived ability. Last week, we moved on from the Big Play activity where we learnt about safe movement over (and off!) our logs and larger play resources.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Forest School, Ropes, Pulleys, Strength, Excercise, Outdoor Play, Outdoor Learning, Play Outdoors, EYFS
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Big Play

April 17, 2015 RedFox
Yeah. That's right. I climbed to top. On my OWN!

Yeah. That's right. I climbed to top. On my OWN!

Muddy bottoms. Bruised knees. Smiling faces.  THIS is what makes all Free Rangers children awesome. I'd like to say that I have a big part to play in this awesomeness (at least that's what I tell myself), but to be honest they do it all on their own. And this week's Forest School in the Den was no different...

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Jumping, Swinging, Red Fox, Climbing, The Den, Forest School, Outdoor Learning, Outdoor Play, Excercise, Motor Skills
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One man's twig, is another bird's house

April 16, 2015 Jess Newman

The theme of last week has been developed from the previous week’s planning; where the children were magically turned into birds, and the children had to hunt for their food (Wiggly worms made from wool!)

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Forest School, The Den, Birds, Nests, Tools
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The Early Bird, Catches the Worm

March 28, 2015 RedFox
FLY MY PRETTIES! FLY! 

FLY MY PRETTIES! FLY! 

You may recall back in January, we built some rather lovely little bird feeders, to give our feathered friends a little energy boost throughout the scarce Winter months. We've looked again at the feeders and why they were an important source of food. It didn't take long for the last feeders we made to appear on the radar of the birds around Free Rangers. Especially the Robins.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Forest School, The Den, Birds, Feeders, Worms, Outdoor Learning, EYFS
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Planting Sunflowers for Mother’s Day

March 17, 2015 Lauren

We’ve had a really good week on Forest School and luckily we haven’t had to put waterproofs on every day of the week due to warmer/dryer weather. Hooray! So this week we headed round to the big barn to have our snack, this week all the children have been trying different types of fruit, including Physalis and Cucumber.

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In Free Rangers Forest School, The Burrow
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Sticks: Conduits for Creativity

March 14, 2015 RedFox
E Y E - S P Y   A D V E N T U R E   O N   T H E   H O R I Z O N

E Y E - S P Y   A D V E N T U R E   O N   T H E   H O R I Z O N

The wonderful thing about children is, children are wonderful things. Why? Simple really, they have innate ability to turn on their creativity without having to think about doing it. Play comes very easily to them. When we get older and we are educated, and bent and shaped by external forces into knuckle dragging boring adults, it often very hard to get back into the swing of our creativity.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags The Den, Co-operation, Forest School, Outdoor Learning, Sticks, Red Fox, Adventure, Roleplay
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Stinging Nettle Tea

March 13, 2015 RedFox

Last week (2nd - 6th) was blessed with sunshine and delightfully Spring induced warmth, which made for a welcome change. It was so mild in fact, for the first time in 2015, we threw caution to the wind, and opted to leave the waterproofs inside! Hurrah!

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags The Den, Forest School, Red Fox, Foraging, Forage, Stinging Nettles
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Water Exploration

March 10, 2015 Lauren
View fullsize DSCN0910.JPG
View fullsize DSCN0911.JPG
View fullsize DSCN0916.JPG

Hello, I hope you have all had a lovely week enjoying the mixture of spring and winter! We sure have had lots of fun, splashing in puddles and exploring our surroundings.

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In Free Rangers Forest School, The Burrow
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Roleplay is Goodplay

February 28, 2015 RedFox
"Oh yes please! I would love to try your cake..."

"Oh yes please! I would love to try your cake..."

First off, I'd like to thank the excellent Den team for filling in last week whilst I was away, running our Holiday Clubs for (as they are now known by the Nursery children) "The Big Boy and Girls". Whilst I love running these weeks, it always nice to come back to the simplicity of Forest School with the Nursery children.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Forest School, Den, The Den, Roleplay, Cooking, Foraging
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Role play in the Paddock

February 24, 2015 Lucy

As Red Fox has been out with the Forest School holiday club it has been Crazy Owl (Katie), Muddy Mouse (Lucy), Ground Beetle (Tam) and Excited Swan (Sophie) running Den Forest School this week. We know that children need lots of opportunities to role play and use their imaginations.

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In Free Rangers Forest School, The Den
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Little Climbers

February 23, 2015 Lauren

Hello and welcome to my first Forest School blog! Recently Lou from the Warren has been planning and evaluating our sessions but the time has come for me to take over and see what our little burrowers can do.

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In Free Rangers Forest School, The Burrow
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Everything Tastes Better When It's Fried In Butter

February 11, 2015 RedFox
Yes, you're right. They do taste as good as they look...

Yes, you're right. They do taste as good as they look...

DONT PANIC! You've not missed Shrove Tuesday! It's next week, but I'll be away running our Forest School Holiday Club so thought it best to bring it a week forward. Pancakes for everyone! 

Because of the spate of far-to-near-to-zero temperatures recently, we've begun to remind ourselves about fire lighting, so we've moved into putting that knowledge into practice and making a fire for a purpose.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Pancakes, Forest School, EYFS, Early Years, Red Fox
2 Comments

This weeks activities in the Nest

February 8, 2015 Jemma Hardy

This weeks activities, following the EYFS planning are, rolling balls in paint to experiment with making new marks and patterns, with a large variety of sensory balls, using powder paint in the tuff spot on a large scale and also in the big tray to encourage development of our gross motor skills...

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In The Nest, Free Rangers Forest School Tags The Nest, Forest School
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Adventure Time

February 8, 2015 RedFox

Telling the children We're going on an adventure! is an excellent opening sentence for Forest School. The children's eyes lit up with glee when they heard these words and you could almost see their cogs of creativity starting to spin into action.

Last week many of our children had asked if they could go on an adventure, whether it would be a pirate orientated one, or hunting dragons and dinosaurs.

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In Free Rangers Forest School, The Den Tags Forest School, Red Fox, Den, Adventure
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Tool Time

January 30, 2015 RedFox
The benefits of tool use at an early age are numerous, but the associated risks often scare practitioners into avoiding it. 

The benefits of tool use at an early age are numerous, but the associated risks often scare practitioners into avoiding it. 

Tools have been the flavour of the week on Forest School, and we've given the children chance to benefit from exploring both their own, and the tools capabilities. 

After last week's Bird Feeders (which have proven incredibly successful, as most have been pecked clean!), the interest in tools was still fresh, so to maintain this interest we selected various different tool 'stations' for them to access.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Tools, Red Fox, Forest School, Den
2 Comments

A Buffet for Birds

January 24, 2015 RedFox
Hot drinks and warming fires were a must this week, keeping the cold winds at bay, and maintaining the longevity of the children's interest whilst outside.

Hot drinks and warming fires were a must this week, keeping the cold winds at bay, and maintaining the longevity of the children's interest whilst outside.

Brrrrrrrrr! Another very chilly week on Forest School. But we've kept the little rangers occupied with some hands-on ornithologically-focussed kindness this week...

We've been fortunate enough on Forest School to be graced by some opportunistic Robins, who, almost without fail, will turn up just as we're having snack to pick up our crumbs.

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In Free Rangers Forest School Tags Tools, Red Fox, Birds, Forest School, Hammer, Den, Drill
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About Free Rangers Magazine
All profits will go towards building a forest school for primary aged children at Free Rangers!FIND OUT MORE

All profits will go towards building a forest school for primary aged children at Free Rangers!

FIND OUT MORE



THE LATEST FROM INSTAGRAM


I spoke to Norton Hill students this week.
It was our chance to tell them all about Early Years Education during one of their careers assemblies.
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It’s not easy trying to sell a career that is underpaid and undervalued within our society. .
Bu
Sharing first experiences.
πŸ› πŸ•· 🐌 
Learning to:
1) Step outside our comfort zone with the support of others
2) Building empathy and compassion for the natural world
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#muddywildhappychild 
#theresawormatthebottomofthegarden
Gone Fishin’ 🎣 🎣 🎣 .
What’s everyone else’s favourite imaginary pastime in their household?
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#muddywildhappychild
One of our Free Rangers asked me to take this photo. πŸŽ„ πŸŽ„ πŸŽ„ “Show my mummy the tree and my decoration.”
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So here we go.
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This amazing totally handmade tree was crafted at the weekend by Charlotte from the Den, along with the gorgeous
A get together before Christmas. .
We went to @fosse_farm for a Christmas wreath building session and Sue put on such a lovely evening with nibbles and drinks and Robbie Williams playing.
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It can be hectic at this time of year but Sue kept everyone
On Friday night Tammy and Sophie from the Hive and the Den taught us how to “Pom Pom” (not sure if that’s an actual verb) and gave us a taster at being a majorette for the night.
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I think we all incurred a few bumps and bruises but
Introducing Bramble, causally mooching around her native habitat. 
She lives on site at Free Rangers and the children have all got to know her well.
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This pic got me thinking about the Wildlife Trusts’ most recent research that highlights the
🌍 🌍 🌎
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“A world where children and adults need time, time to stop and take a breath, to be bored, to not be on call every moment, to be quiet, thoughtful, joyful without the need for things, to be at one with the environment, to be content.
Tomorrow’s Sunday challenge?
🌲 🌳 🌲
See the world from your child’s eyes and embrace a different perspective.
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If they are a baby lie on your back next to them and babble away.
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If they’re a toddler, crawl under tables and toddl
As the weather drops we are ensuring we have wood on site for when we need a fire to warm us or to cook something warming.
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Please bring lots of layers for outdoor play and forest school.
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If we’re warm we can play. .
Gloves, hats and scarves

SEE MORE

Free Rangers
The Mill Barn
Millards Hill
Midsomer Norton
Banes
BA3 2BW
01761 411328

Who We Are
Our History
Our Story So Far
The Site
Forest School
Our Staff

Magazine
Our Blog
Contact Us

Our Shop
Terms and Conditions

What We Offer
Session Times
Clubs and Courses
Food At Free Rangers
Early Years Entitlement
FAQs
Policies & Documents
Tapestry
Free Rangers Nursery App 

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Website design and photography by Pennleigh.