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.
Read moreUsing Loppers!
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!
Read moreFlower Power!
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!
Read moreNew friends mean new memories
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.
Read moreSee how strong I am?
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.
Read moreBig Play
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...
Read moreOne man's twig, is another bird's house
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!)
Read moreThe Early Bird, Catches the Worm
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.
Read morePlanting Sunflowers for Mother’s Day
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.
Read moreSticks: Conduits for Creativity
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.
Read moreStinging Nettle Tea
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!
Read moreWater Exploration
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.
Read moreRoleplay is Goodplay
"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.
Read moreRole play in the Paddock
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.
Read moreLittle Climbers
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.
Read moreEverything Tastes Better When It's Fried In Butter
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.
Read moreThis weeks activities in the Nest
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...
Read moreAdventure Time
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.
Read moreTool Time
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.
Read moreA Buffet for Birds
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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