Forest School 

Each week, our Reception children take part in Forest School sessions in our dedicated Forest School area. These sessions give children the opportunity to explore the natural environment through hands-on, child-led activities such as den making, exploring natural materials and imaginative play. Forest School sessions support children's confidence, independence, teamwork, problem-solving skills while promoting a love for the outdoors. Time spent outside also helps develop physical skills, resilience and well being providing a rich and meaningful learning experience that complements learning in the classroom. 

Autumn Term 

We have enjoyed the obstacle course, practicing our balancing skills. 

We created sound maps by closing our eyes in our forest school area and listening to all of the sounds that we could hear around us. We then drew pictures of what we could hear and wrote initial sounds and key words linked to the environment around us.

Linked to our story of the week in Drawing Club, we enjoyed creating our very own and unique Stickman!

We created Autumn party hats for Percy the Park Keeper's Autumn gathering. 

Across the term, we have used the mud kitchen to create a range of recipes, from Gruffalo Crumble to Pumpkin Soup. 

We created our own Autumn wish jars, using natural autumn resources that we found around the forest school grounds.

We explored pumpkins and carved them, using simple tools and equipment. 

We read the story 'A little bit of Winter' and created bird feeders to hang in the trees for the birds to enjoy if they are struggling to find food in the harsh winter weather. 

Spring Term

The start of our Spring term was very icy! We read the story 'The Snow Thief' and we discussed the snow that we had enjoyed previously in the week. We spoke about how it had rained overnight and the temperature had warmed up a little bit and the snow had mostly all melted away. We created our own watercolour snowflakes using glue, salt and paint and watched as the paint was absorbed by the salt. We then found some ice in the bowls in the mud kitchen and enjoyed painting it with the paints. 

Winter Wonderland ❄️

Reception had a magical time on our magical Christmas trip to West Boldon Lodge. First, we met Tinker the Elf who helped us decorate our very own Santa hat.

We then explored the forest and had to work together to find the pieces of the jigsaw. We then sat around the campfire. We enjoyed a toasted marshmallow and sang Christmas songs.

After that, we enjoyed some delicious hot chocolate. Tinker showed us how to make a special wooden Christmas tree and we decorated it with glitter and pom-poms.

Finally, after all that hard work, we met Father Christmas himself. We spoke with Santa about what we would like and what we had been good at throughout the year. Luckily we are all on the nice list!