Noah’s Ark Forest School Experience.
“Exploring and learning in a natural environment.”
Each week we take a small group of children in their Pre-school year to a local wood for our Forest School experience. Children are invited to join us for two blocks of 4 or 5 consecutive sessions at different times of the year.
We see the forest as a place of possibility. The children’s interests shape each session but typical activities include:
- Puddles, splashing, measuring, testing floating and sinking
- ‘123, Where Are You?’ our Forest School hide and seek game
- Physical challenges, negotiating the Big Hill, climbing trees or the rocky cliff, balancing along logs
- Creating natural art using sticks, leaves and other found materials
- Story-telling and role-play
- Exploring the sounds we can hear and create
- Discovering nature, noticing the seasonal changes, investigating mini-beasts, plants and trees
- Forest School snack, with hot chocolate and a chocolate biscuit
The woods provide wonderful opportunities for the children to show curiosity about the world around them as well as to use their senses to explore the environment. Each session encourages the children to engage in open-ended activities, to seek new challenges and to even take a risk and learn through trial and error. We actively promote the children to engage in the world around them through playing and exploring, active learning and to think critically to problem solve. In the woods, this could look like considering how deep a puddle is or problem solving how to carry a heavy log. These are what we call the Characteristics of an Effective Learner.
Children wear their own wellies but Noah’s Ark have invested in waterproof trousers and jackets which go over your child’s own clothes. This gives them the freedom to explore the woods fully without worrying about their clothes getting spoiled.
We travel by minibus, driven by a qualified minibus driver. We aim to leave Noah’s Ark soon after 9.00 and return to Pre-school before the end of the morning session, ready to go home or into Lunch Club.
