Stonebroom Primary And Nursery School

Year 4 (Koala class)

 Welcome to your Forest School activities page!

Here you will find details and photos of all our sessions in the Woodland and on the Animal Park.  Please scroll down the page to see what we will be getting up to each week!

Click on the Planning and Risk Assessments tab to see what we have planned for the 12 sessions leading up to Christmas with Year 4, along with the letter to parents with all details of what your child needs for their FS sessions

Group 1 will have their session on Tuesday afternoons, Group 2 will have their session on Friday afternoons.

Our first sessions were on the 10th and 13th September and we will be having weekly sessions right up to Christmas!

Group 1 are now known as "The Crazy Creatures"!

Group 2 have decided to call themselves

"The Wild Ones"

Week 7 - Crazy Creatures

Looking at Autumn leaves and fungus (from various perspectives!)

Only the Crazy Creatures are having a Forest School session this week, because of the INSET day on Friday, but this makes up for the session they missed at the beginning of term, when Mr Pepper came in to make the Egyptian film.

It was a beautiful, sunny Autumnal day for our session this week, and it was surprisingly warm too!  We collected some dry leaves in big buckets before we went on to the Animal Park, but we had to leave them outside the gate, because the goats might have eaten them all!  Miss T said dry and crunchy Autumn leaves are like crisps to goats!  We made sure all our animals shared the food out of the piggy buckets (as best we could, because Shaggy and Horace kept trying to run off with the buckets!)  We collected just a few eggs, and candled them to make sure there were no chicks inside.  We are really good and this now, we can do it without any adult intervention! We cleaned out water tubs, swept paths and the roof of the goat shed, sorted the hay out for the goats, and then we headed into the woodland.  We remembered to take our buckets of leaves and a tarp and we had a look at the different shapes of the leaves.  We have been doing this in class and some of us could remember which tree some of the leaves had come from.

We spread the leaves on the tarp and all held on to the edge.. we counted to 3 and threw the tarp up in the air and Miss T pulled it away at the last minute so all the leaves fell on us!  We have a super video of this, have a look below!  We did this several times and then made leaf angels in the fallen leaves on the floor!

One of our group has been asking to go on a fungus hunt since week 2 of our Forest School sessions, so we went and had a look for some today.  There were so many different types, and Miss Rice took a fabulous photo of the smallest mushroom we have ever seen, growing out of some Jelly Ear fungus!  We went and had a look at the birch polypore bracket fungus which is growing out of a dead silver birch tree.  It was amazing how much fungus we found and Miss T said that we should never destroy fungus when we see it as it is an essential part of the woodland food chain as it is a decomposer.  We will be learning more about this after half term.

We went back to the main FS site and had a go at climbing the tree that we cleared the ground around last week.  Miss T was amazed at how many of us said we had never climbed a tree before!  She showed us how to climb safely and also how to get down again, and only to climb as high as we were happy to go.

Some wonderful, independent learning this week Crazy Creatures, well done!

Week 6 - Wild Ones - 18th October

We are Goats too!

When we feed apples or carrots to the goats, we need to hold on to them really tightly while the goats take a bite, because their mouths are too small to take the whole thing, like Horace or Olive do, and they can't hold on to it because they don't have hands!  Shaggy has learned to turn his head and push the carrot / apple against his body while he takes a bite, but it's still difficult to stop it falling to the floor.

We did all our usual jobs on the Animal Park, and made sure all the animals had plenty of food, fresh water and hay in their sheds.  We collected the eggs and took them into a dark shed to candle them, without any help this week.

We went into the woodland and Miss T explained that we were going to be goats and try eating an apple or a carrot without using our hands.  She showed us how to make a hole through the apple or carrot and then thread a piece of string through to hang it up on a rope.  Some of us found this a bit tricky to start with, but there were soon cries of "I did it!" as we found the best way to do it.  We hung our chosen fruit / veg onto a rope then knelt down on the floor with our hands behind our backs and tried to eat without using our hands..  It was a lot of fun and some of us couldn't even get close because we were laughing so much.  Miss T and Mrs Phipps were really impressed with our problem solving skills and how much we talked to each other while trying to take a bite!  Some of us just wouldn't give up until there was only string left hanging from the rope!

Miss T talked to us about how to use loppers and we all listened to the safety talk really well.  We demonstrated how sensible we can be, and this is especially important when we use tools.  It's important to communicate with each other to work out the best strategy when cutting sticks.  We used the loppers to cut down brambles and nettles around the climbing tree and we put some rope on the trunk to show how high we can climb.  We'll spend some time climbing the tree next week.

Have a look at our super team work photos below.

Week 6 - Crazy Creatures - 15th October

We are Goats!

While we were on the Animal Park today, we looked at how the goats eat apples.  If it's a whole apple we need to hold it tightly while they nibble it, because they only have small mouths an obviously cannot hold the apple while they eat it.  Goats only have teeth on the bottom of their mouths at the front, but the do have big teeth top and bottom and the back of their mouths.

We collected about 12 eggs - the ducks and hens are laying less eggs now, because the days are getting shorter and they tend to have a bit of a rest over the winter months.  They are also shedding their feathers ready to grow new, thicker ones to keep them warm, so that takes a lot of energy.  We 'candled' the eggs, which means shining a bright light through each egg to see if it is fertile or not.  It is not likely that the eggs will be fertile at this time of year, but it's always best to check.  If the egg glows when the light is shone though it, the egg is not fertile.  If small red veins or shadows can be seen then that means a chick is beginning to form inside the egg, and if a fertile egg has been incubated under the mother for a few weeks, no light will shine through it and the chick can sometimes be seen moving around inside.  It's fascinating to see, and all of our eggs today were not fertile.

Horace was very good at sitting for his food today - he is such a performer!  One of us spent a lot of time talking to Olive, because she felt that Olive gets a little left out while we are on the Animal Park.  Olive is not confident around people she doesn't know, which is why she stays in her paddock.  Miss T said that she comes out to play on the Animal Park in a morning, while no one else is there, but she is quite happy to go back to bed once she knows people are coming!

Once all jobs were completed and our animals were all fed, watered and had fresh hay in their beds, we went down to the woodland.  Miss T said that as we had been talking about how the goats need help eating apples and carrots, we were going to try 'being goats'!  We threaded string through either apples, tomatoes or carrots and hung them on a rope that was tied between two trees.  We put our hands behind our backs and tried to eat the fruit / veg without using our hands! Oh this was hilarious!  We had so much fun, but most of all Miss T and Miss Rice were impressed with how resilient we were.  This was not easy but we all persisted (between fits of giggles) and eventually managed to consume most of the fruit.

We had a tool talk on loppers and how to use them safely and then we had a go at cutting some sticks.  We worked together in pairs and the teamwork was fantastic!  We cleared the brambles around our climbing tree and put chippings down around it.  We'll be having a go at climbing it next week.

Some of us built bug hotels and bug snugs and there was some absolutely brilliant communication and team work this week Crazy Creatures.. Well done!

Week 5 - The Wild Ones - 11th October

Orienteering in the Woodland

Lovely sunshine for our session this week but the Animal Park was so muddy after all the rain earlier in the week, so there was a lot of mud sweeping to do.  We collected the eggs and Miss T said we could have a look to see if the eggs were fertile or not, by shining a bright light through the egg.  If an egg is fertile, small red veins will be visible, or if the egg has started to incubate, there will be dark shadows / patches visible.  In spring, when the hens / ducks are incubating their eggs, it is possible to see the chick moving inside the egg when shining a bright light through it.  This is known as 'candling'.  One member of our group said that her Grandad Dave had shown her how to do this.  She even knew what to look for!  You'll see from the photos how the egg 'glows' when it is not fertile.

We made sure all the animals had lots of treats out of the school piggy bucket, and we remembered to fuss and feed Olive too.  She was a bit grumpy but she took the food gently.  We changed the water in Horace's water tub because the ducks had been swimming in it and the water was really smelly!

Once all the animals were fed and watered, we went into the woodland, to the log circle in the main Forest School area.  We played the log cookie warm up game. Miss T showed us some log cookies with a picture on one side and an instruction on the other eg. "climb a tree".  When we saw the picture, we tried to guess what the instruction was and then mime the action.  We knew that a mime is acting something out, but not making any sound, just actions.  We managed to guess what most of the pictures but we found it a bit difficult to act them out without using any sound, especially when one of them was "Be a duck"!!

Miss T then showed us the woodland maps and we remembered so much from our orienteering sessions back in Year 2!  Most of us knew how to 'ground' the map, we knew what landmarks are and we knew we needed to use the paths marked on the map to get to where we need to go.  We split into smaller groups of 2 or 3 and Miss T gave each group a number which corresponded to a numbered triangle on the map.  We worked out how to get to the location of our number and when we got there we had to look for a hidden action log cookie.  When we found it, we worked out a mime and then we performed our mime back at the log circle for the rest of the group.  This was lots of fun, especially the group who had the log cookie  "Be a pig"!

We had some free time after this and we found lots of fungus growing out of tree stumps and if you look carefully, you will see a photo of three little wood nymphs hiding behind one of the mushrooms that we found!

Thank you Wild Ones, we had some fun today!

Week 5 - The Crazy Creatures - 8th October

Orienteering in the Woodland

The Crazy Creatures are really good at getting all our jobs done on the Animal Park now, they just go and get on!

We let Horace out of his paddock, but he took ages to realise his gate was open, we think he'd been fast asleep in his tin shed, which has lots of hay and straw in it - it looks SO comfy!  When he did come out on to the park, he ran up to the top because there was lots of fruit from the school piggy bucket for him to hoover up!

We made sure Olive got plenty too, and we changed the dirty water in Horace's drinking tub so it was lovely and fresh.  We collected about 12 eggs, filled the hay baskets up for the goats and swept some of the mud from the paving slabs,  We cleared the river that flows from the duck coop - it had become all clogged up with mud and wasn't flowing properly.  We even groomed Shaggy and plaited some of his fur, because he was in a lovely, calm mood today and didn't keep running off! We hand fed the ducks and chickens and watched the goats as they took food from their new "slow feeders".  When Miss T blew the whistle, we took all the tools we'd been using back to the tool rack before lining up at the gate to go into the woodland.

We went to the main FS site today and tidied up the log circle.  We played the log cookie warm up game, and some of remembered this from when we were in Year 2.  Miss T has some log cookies (no, we can't eat these cookies, they're made of wood!) with an action on one side and a drawn picture on the other side, of something we might do in Forest School, eg "Build a Den" or "Stung by a nettle".  We tried to mime the action with big movements - this will help to keep us warm when the weather turns cold!  Today, however, we needed to go and find some of these action cookies in the woodland, by finding the markers on our woodland map.  Each group was given a number, we found our number on the map and then had to work out how to get to it by using the paths in the woodland.  When we found the location of our number, we needed to look for a hidden log cookie and when we found it, we worked out how to mime the action, so we could perform it for the group to guess.

We talked about 'grounding' our maps, to make sure all the landmarks were in the right place and some of us got this straight away!  One of us even worked out from the compass that is marked on the map, which way is north!  Very impressive!  We remembered that the map has to stay in the same orientation all the time, and some of us found this a little difficult at first, but we all went off and successfully found our log cookies (eventually!).  We brought them back to the log circle and performed our mimes for the rest of the group,  This was very funny and there were some really good guesses!

We had a bit of free time so we started to scatter some wood chippings around the base of our climbing tree.  Some of us have asked if we can use the climbing tree again, so we need to make it safe.

Have a look at our photos below.

Week 4 - "The Wild Ones" - 4th October

Another very wet and muddy session!

The weather was a lot better today, in fact the sun was shining for us!  The Animal Park is still very muddy, so we didn't do a lot of jobs, but we did feed and cuddle all the animals and we put hay in the sheds.  Shaggy the goat is very greedy and keeps jumping up to try and get all the food!

We collected some shovels and headed down to the pond to see what the Crazy Creatures got up to on Tuesday.  The dams they had made were still in place and all the ponds were very full.  We decided that we would need to build the sides of the bottom two ponds up with logs to stop the water overflowing there, so we set to work and the results were fantastic!  We put long logs along the banks of the ponds and secured them with mud and stones so most of the water couldn't get through.

We looked at the source of the water that feeds the ponds and Miss T showed us a little well at the top of the highest pond where there is a constant flow of fresh water, even when it's not been raining.  Some of us spent time looking for frogs in the top pond and we found quite a few.  Miss T said the frogs spend the winter in the well and behind the pond liner on the sides of the top pond.  We tried using the underwater camera, but the lens kept steaming up.. We'll have to have a think about how we could stop that happening?

We played the nature moss ball team game and once we understood the concept, we were really good at it.  We all chose a nature alliteration name, eg. Mrs. Phipps Fish, we introduced ourselves to the group and then we threw the moss balls to each  other in turn, ending up with Miss T Tadpole and we managed to have four moss balls going at once, which is a pretty good start!  We'll practice this game over the coming weeks.

Everyone (who wanted to) jumped into the bottom pond at the end of the session and to finish, we tipped the pond water out of our wellies (wellie weeing!) before making our way back to school.

Another super session Wild Ones, orienteering next week!

Have a look at our photos below.

Week 4 - "The Crazy Creatures" - 1st October

A truly wet and muddy session at the pond!

There has been torrential rain for the past two days and it was touch and go as to whether we would even get an outdoor session on Tuesday.  BUT it stopped raining at about 12 noon, so Miss T decided we would brave the elements (mainly because we had asked for a muddy week anyway) and get outside!  

We didn't stop on the Animal Park this week, because all the animals had been locked in their paddocks / coops for the morning and it was far too slippery and dangerous to get any jobs done.  The ducks were the only animals to be out of their coop, because they really don't mind getting wet... 

We went straight down to the ponds and had a look at how the water flows from the top pond, down to the other two.  We looked at the source of the water coming into the top pond and found that there is a fresh water spring under the ground that constantly supplies a flow of water through the ponds.  We stirred the mud up at the mouth of the spring and could see how fast the water was flowing after the recent downpours.  Unfortunately, the dams that keep the water in the bottom two ponds have been destroyed.  We were a little upset about this as there is simply no need for this level of destruction, BUT we decided to work as a super team and rebuild these dams using rocks, sticks, stones and lots of mud.  We also took a little time out to paint mud on each others faces, making sure we always asked if it was ok before painting our friends faces.  If someone said 'no' we made sure we didn't put mud on them.

If you look at the water levels on the first few photos, and compare them to the water levels after we had built the dams, then you will see what a good job of holding the water in the bottom two ponds our dams are doing.  In fact, we had to let a bit of water through because our dams were so good, they started to overflow! There was some absolutely brilliant team work, communication and consideration during this session, and Miss T, Miss Rice and Marg were very impressed with how well everyone worked together.  It was very amusing that several of the group were quite content to just sit in the pond, and we all did a "Team jump in" after our work was complete. 

We always make sure that we do not go into the top pond as this is where the frogs live. The frogs also dig deep into the mud for the winter and we have found several inside the spring before too!  We could see quite a few tadpoles that had not turned into frogs, they will probably over-winter in the pond and may well turn into frogs early next spring.  We also saw water beetles, fresh water shrimp and little tiny leeches in the mud at the bottom of the pond.  The bottom two ponds have less creatures in them at this time of the year, and most of them will be down in the mud and will survive us jumping in and disturbing the water for a short while.

We played our Moss Ball Team Game too, and a lot of the Crazy Creatures Group could remember this from Year 2! We all chose a nature alliteration name for our own name, eg "Miss Thompson Tadpole"; we introduced ourselves to the group using this name and an associated action, then we threw a moss ball (a ball of moss pressed into the toe of an old sock, twisted round to make a ball!) to one member of the team, saying their name before throwing, and eventually, the moss ball came back to Miss T, who is always the last person to be thrown to.  We managed five moss balls and only a couple of them ended up in the pond!

Let's see if "The Wild Ones" can beat this on Friday!

Have a look at our photos below.

Week 3 - Group 2 (The Wild Ones) - 27th Sept

Hunting for invertebrates in the woodland.

We didn't even need the job list for the Animal Park this week, we just went and got on with everything.  We do need to remember to think of the needs of the animals, and remember to talk to them, just like we would talk to our friends.  When collecting the eggs from underneath the hens, we need to tell them "it's ok, we're not going to hurt you", just to reassure them.  Similarly, when grooming Shaggy and Norbert, we need to remember to ask them if we can brush them, talk to them, stroke them with our hands first, otherwise they could get scared and wonder what we're going to do to them!  We know not to chase the hens and ducks as they will just run away.  If we want them to come to us, we need to kneel on the ground with some food in our hands, and, again, talk to them kindly when they come over.

We put lots of hay into Horace's new piggy arc, because Miss T said that he doesn't like sleeping in it, he sleeps in the one in the main Animal Park at the moment, so we made it lovely and comfy for him and fluffed up all the hay.

Once we had completed all the jobs, we headed into the woodland.  We had a look at the pumpkin patch that Miss T's son, Sam, has planted.. there are about 10 pumpkins that we could see and one of them looks just like a bottom!  We went to see Hamish, Donut and Dottie, the three pigs that live in the paddocks in the woodland, and Miss T told us that it's Donut's 14th birthday today, so we all sang Happy Birthday to him!

We went to the main log circle and had a look for some invertebrates (creatures with no back bone, basically) such as slugs, snails, beetles, spiders, woodlice, worms etc. We have been learning about these in class this week.  We found loads underneath logs and rocks and we also found a lot of blue beetles, that Miss T said were Alder beetles.  They are an invasive species that eat the leaves of the Alder tree, then lay their eggs in the Autumn leaf litter on the woodland floor.  The eggs hatch in the spring and the whole process starts again!

We went up to the Community Garden to look at the Cabbage white caterpillars.  There have been hundreds of these on the Brassica plants this year, which is why Miss T let us pick them up and have a look.  Normally, we would leave caterpillars alone.  They have decimated the leaves on the brassicas, but once the caterpillars have gone, the plants will start to grow back.   We talked about the life cycle of a butterfly and when Miss T was explaining what the cabbage white butterfly looks like, two flew past so we could see! 

A lovely sunny Forest School session with our Wild Ones!

Have a look at some photos below.

Week 3 - Group 1 (The Crazy Creatures) - 24th Sept

Rebuilding the woodland dens and bug hunting

A super busy session this week, and after some discussion, Group 1 decided they would like to be called "The Crazy Creatures".

Our job list for the Animal Park wasn't pinned up this week, Miss Rice had it in her hand, so she could check it off as jobs were completed.  The only problem with this is that Shaggy the goat decided to jump up at Miss Rice and eat the job list!  We thought this was very funny and luckily, most of us could remember what jobs needed doing. We all worked really hard to feed, change water in drinking tubs, sweep, rake, put hay in sheds and buckets and groom Shaggy and Norbert (Norris and Ned really don't like having their hair brushed!)

We went into the woodland and had a chat about using the woodland gloves.  Miss T showed us how to take the gloves off without turning them inside out, and how to roll them up like a pair of socks and return them to the bag.  We rebuilt some of the dens and we dismantled one, because it had started to fall down and could have been dangerous; we tidied the mud kitchens and some of us looked for bugs and insects under the logs and stones.  We found a lot of bright blue beetles and Miss T said that these are Alder Beetles.  They are quite destructive because the eat their way through the leaves of the Alder tree, then lay their eggs under the leaf litter on the woodland floor in the Autumn; these eggs hatch into larvae in Spring and the whole process starts again!

We went up to the Community Garden at the top of the woodland to see the caterpillars that have destroyed the Brassica (Kale) plants.  They are the caterpillars of the cabbage white butterfly and there have been hundreds of them on the plants.  The plants will regrow over the winter once the caterpillars have gone.  We will be talking about the life cycle of the butterfly over the next few weeks.

Have a look at our photos below - the group have asked for a muddy session next week, so we will be visiting the pond with The Wild Ones and The Crazy Creatures to mend the dams and to get super muddy!

Week 2 - Group 2 (The Wild Ones!) - 20th September

Autumn in the Woodland

We spent some time on the Animal Park, making sure all our animals had everything they need.  We gave everyone some fruit bits out of the school piggy bucket, we changed all the water in everyone's drinking tubs, we collected eggs, and we made a fuss of everyone too.  Horace and the goats (especially Shaggy) are always very pleased to see us!

We went into the woodland this week and we tidied up the main FS site.  We rebuilt the seating circle, tidied the mud kitchen, moved some rocks and logs and added some sticks to the dens.  There was some super team work and the woodland soon looked a lot tidier.

We had collected some buckets of dried leaves on our way down to the Animal Park and we tipped these leaves onto a tarpaulin.  We all held on to the edges of the tarp and threw it up into the air. Miss T pulled the tarp away and all the leaves fell on us!  There are a couple of videos in the photos below.  Have a look, it was lots of fun!

We made leaf angels and we talked about Sizzles, our friendly woodland dragon.  We can tell when Sizzles is around because the tree canopy moves.  We will be looking out for Sizzles each week.....

Have a look at our photos below.

Week 1 - Group 2 - 13th September

Visiting the Animal Park

The weather was beautiful for our first Forest School session with Group 2 this week.  We talked about the rules of the Animal Park, and everyone could remember that we need to be calm and quiet around the animals and not chase or scare them.  We took some fruit bits from the school piggy bucket down with us and made sure everyone had some food, including Olive.  Marg joined us and we had a look at the job list, and chose which jobs we would like to do.  We changed the water in Horace's drinking tub, collected eggs and made sure the goats had plenty of fresh hay.  We did manage to have a little cuddle with one of our 8 week old chicks, but we have to remember not to chase them around too much to catch them, as this scares the chicks.

We swept paving slabs, and changed the water in all the containers in the chicken coops and goat paddock and we learned how to change the hose connection over, so that the water flowed into the different duck ponds.  We made a new channel to help the water flow out of the duck pond, and it worked really well.

We had a chat about the different types of eggs and learned why they are different sizes and colours.  Most of us were confident to feed the goats and Horace, and Horace seemed very pleased to see us and even let one of us brush him!  He doesn't normally like to be brushed, but Shaggy loves being brushed, so we spent a lot of time doing that and he looked really smart by the end of the afternoon.

A lovely first Forest School session, Group 2.  Next week we will go into the woodland.

Have a look at some photos below.

Week 1 - Group 1 - 10th September

Visiting the Animal Park

Even though it was raining today, we were still very excited to visit our Animal Park again, and Miss T was very impressed with how much we could remember from our FS sessions in Year 2!

There was a job list pinned to the chicken coop and we ticked off lots of jobs as we completed them.  We collected eggs and learned that the bigger hens lay the bigger eggs, the smaller hens lay little eggs, and that duck eggs are mostly big and blue!

We talked about the differences between cockerels and hens and how to tell a male duck from a female.  We had some really good discussions with some really super questions.

There are three new animal arcs on the Animal Park, one on Horace's paddock and two on the main AP area.  We filled these with fresh hay, so the animals have somewhere to shelter from the rain.  We learned that goats really don't like the rain and will go into their shelter as soon as the rain starts.  The ducks on the other hand, love the rain and anything to do with water and mud!

We dug a channel from the duck coop to help the water that overflows from the duck pond to flow away and under the fence.  We found this a tricky concept to begin with, but once we realised that we needed to work together and dig in a line, we realised it made the water flow much more efficiently, and we made a really good job of the river, even making two channels join into one main river (a tributary, as one child remembered from their Year 3 learning!)

We groomed Shaggy the goat and learned that it is important to talk to him and reassure him that we are going to be kind and gentle.  Horace the pig is very friendly and even sat for us while we fed him.  We need to remember to feed Olive, our little pink pig.  She is a bit scared of lots of people around her, so she stays in her paddock, but she still needs lots of love and food!

There are lots of little chicks on the Animal Park, the youngest are four weeks old, and even though we really wanted to pick them up and cuddle them, Miss T explained that the Mamma Hen would not want us to, she would worry that we wouldn't bring them back, so we just watched them.  Mamma Hen (Peckles) teaches her chicks how to find food, how to scratch the ground and look for insects, and also how to stay out of the way of the goats and Horace!

A super first session Group 1. 

Have a look at some photos below.