Johanna Wakeham

Forest school has a child led ethos, allowing children time to connect with nature in their own way. The experiential activities can include nature based games, arts and crafts from natural resources, making natural dyes, simple bush craft challenges using hand drills and saw, learning traditional skills, clay creatures, scavenger hunts, tracking, winter hibernation, den building, seasonal crafts, natural cordage, song, fire lighting skills, foraging, sensory activities and nature meditations.

Workshops can be held throughout the year, allowing children to experience the different seasons and weather. This long-term programme really benefits children as they build confidence and resilience through learner inspired, hands on experiences in an outdoor setting. The wide range of activities builds their connection to the natural environment.

Field Trip: to Woodstock Arboretum, Inistioge, Co. Kilkenny. This is a wonderful woodland location for Forest School activities with easy access, big car park and toilets.

Mindfulness in nature activities through the Japanese practice Shinrin yoku, can benefit any age including children. Experiencing the gentle but profound activities helps to open the senses which leads to a deeper immersion in nature, and learning new skills.

This can be combined with making their own nature journal from cardboard, wool and different materials. This enables the children to connect with the plants around them, by either drawing them, writing about them, or sticking them into their journals.

Eco art could be, for example, creating a large mandala out of leaves, or creating a spiral from pine cones, or tree spirits from clay. The list is endless depending on the group and place.

Bringing Neolithic times to life through props, story and fun, and making a typical stone age tool from slates. An interactive workshop where they experience bone, animal hides, antlers, leather, and time travel. The slate knives or axes are safe and totally absorbing to make.

Focusing on the incredible journey of swallows; imagining being a swallow flying 7,000 miles, sounds, story and finishing with creating their own from clay and natural resources.