Owlets Forest School Cambridgeshire

Conker bonker snake 🐍

More photos of today :) Our wishing tree 🌳 to put any thoughts or wishes down over the last week; Pick-up stick, also known as Jackstraw game! Also, our sensory corner!

We made iron gall ink, conker snakes, played 'pick up sticks' with gator tweezers, parachute games, made wishes for any children who wanted to share their thoughts and wishes from the last week

Autumn activities are here!

We talked about autumn berries and made tie- dye with blackberries and tumeric with the stones, and acorns and shells around the forest. We played with our make believe fire and cooked some stew. We also grew some wildflowers and decorated with shells

We made key rings for our new school bags and lavender pouches for our smelly PE kit bags!
We talked about how the Tudors used lavender to keep the moths away, as well as lavender tea. We also discussed how lavender attracts the bees but actually this is because bees have poor eyesight and are attracted to the flower by it's smell, however the flower does not contain much nectar!!! Poor 🐝
We also made dens, sang songs and read Flannimals and, like the book, made up our own creatures: a walking whale, a hedgehog face with a dragon tail!
Here is a collage of our wonderful creatures

We talked about false autumn today and how trees were shedding their leaves early due to moving into survival mode with the drought. We also had a bee theme and made bees with pine cones, bee bombs and later had bread and honey

We made a sensory walk with water, mud, moss and willow. The children loved this! We made dens, fairy houses had a dragonfly theme and made dragonflies, hid dragonflies in the forest and read books and poems about bugs, including dragonflies. We also linked water shortage and the effects droughts have on dragonfly larvae.

More photos of today. Bookings open for September

Well, what a brilliant final day holiday camp!
We:
1) Children made paracord bracelets with compasses with Lucy!
2) we used the compasses to learn about North, South, East and West points.
3) Made water filtration systems with sand, charcoal and pebbles and what residue looks like. The children explored other material, such as moss and leaves to compare filtering.!
4) we had water fights and when we run out of water linked this back to water sustainability and filtration systems!
5) We made fairy houses and decorated fairy doors
6) We made dens, climbed, sang with sticks and read stories about bears living in hollows.
Thank you children and parents- beautiful memories!

Trails and treasures were nesting in nicely!

Mud mud glorious mud, nothing quite like it for cooling the blood! :)

We played treasure hunt games, made gruffalo crumble with fruit and biscuits. We read 'Going on a Bear Hunt and walked in mud!
We hit sticks together everytime the word 'wild' came up in the: 'Where the Wild Things Are'. We played games. We had a wild rumpus!

Reusable bees wax wraps. Testing before holiday camp!
https://practicalprimate.com/beeswax-wraps/

Social constructionism and Forest School!
Another girl was practising being a bat on the ropes and this girl observed and did the same, having never done this before. She loves the sensory feedback this provides her and is now a forever batgirl!

Lev Vygotsky: Mind and Society:

"Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people, and then, inside the child … All the higher [mental] functions originate as actual relations between human individuals.”

Holiday camp at Owlets on 9/10/11th August
Dear Parent Carers, our meeting place is by the entrance of Byron Woods. Please look for the chalkboard- this is the meeting point. If you see this, you are in the right place!

We:
whittled; we finished our butterfly house; we did hapa zome with flowers and climbed trees and made dens. It was fab

Hi,
Do you work with children and have a DBS?. Do you like to be different and make a difference? We like quirky!
Please contact us @ Owlets Forest School.
You will get messy, you will be outside in all weather's but you will have the most memorable time!
Please contact us if interested in Saturday sessions:)

Hi Parent Carers,
We have some afternoon session spaces available: 1-3pm on the 9/10/11th August. Please WhatsApp for spaces, or e-mail on: [email protected]

Owlets Forest School SUMMER CAMP 🦉
9/10/11th August. Based at Byron Pool- Trumpington Meadows

As part of our 'Big Butterfly Count' we spotted butterflies, hammered ice which contained frozen flowers that butterflies love.
While we read 'The Hungry Caterpillar', the children synced their eating of fruit to the Hungry Caterpillar: apples, pears...using our big hungry caterpillar as a prompt. We also made a butterfly house to put in the forest for the butterflies to sleep.
Sorry we always forget to take photos! We have taken a few :)
Fantastic day....just fantastic x

Thank you to the little boy who made my necklace today and the wonderful picture two little girls gave Carole and I ( I will give your picture next Saturday Carole!)

We made butterfly feeders for the Big Butterfly Count! We decorated our dens and mud kitchen with goose feathers, we planted seeds from our plantable book and of course read the hungry caterpillar that turned into a butterfly! 🦋

Every Saturday- based at Byron Pool 🦉

More photos from today: clay snails leaving trails.

Snail and trails and snails on whales! 🐋 🐌

Our lovely fairy fantastic tree 🧚‍♀️ 👸

The Big Butterfly Count starts today 🦋 🦋 🦋
https://bigbutterflycount.butterfly-conservation.org/

We hold sessions every Saturday:
Forest school is not a one off/ an occasional activity (however any outdoor activity is positive as part of nature connectedness and wellbeing). The philosophy of Forest School scaffolds and build's upon sessions which follow the forest school philosophy:

Inspire opportunities for children and young people to steer their own learning in a natural, woodland setting. We offer a wide range of enjoyable, holistic activities that enable children to develop as confident, resilient, independent learners who are willing to take risks and enjoy the intrinsic delights of learning. We encourage children to care for the environment, never to damage anything growing in it, and never to leave anything behind but footprints!

The essence of forest school is for children and young people to:

⦁ Build strong, positive attitudes towards themselves and their natural world
⦁ Learn how to share the woodland with animals and plants and take appropriate responsibility for maintaining the natural environment
⦁ Choose, initiate, and drive their own intrinsically rewarding learning and development
⦁ Encounter appropriate risk and challenge
⦁ Be creative and resourceful in a natural setting
⦁ Explore new tasks and activities when they feel ready to do so
⦁ Enjoy regular success through appropriate and achievable tasks
⦁ Develop positive self-esteem and good relationships with other people

Saturday Forest School: We made fairy houses & played a game where we filled an empty bottle of washing up liquid with water and we had to find the hidden human snail from the water trail! We had snail facts such as left and right handed snails and how to tell the age of a snail from the rings on it's shells (like tree trunk circles!)
We ate dates all the way from Oman and talked about where these came from.
We also had a story about frogs and snails and an impromptu story from the children about a fox and a ballerina!

The children made bowling alleys and tried different bowling trail routes and stop sticks! The children made potions from lavender and aimed pine cones through wreaths!
Great day! have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves.” ~ Jean Piaget

We made wigwams, talked about tongue twisters during hot chocolate time (after reading Dr Suess and Fox in Socks! The children then begun to make up their own tongue twisters- brilliant#forestschoolcommunity

Every Saturday Owlets and Owlets Summer camp on the: 9/10/11th August. Based at Trumpington Meadow, Byron's Wood

NEWSFLASH

Summer Camp dates released so far for OWLETS:
9th/10th/11th August

E-MAIL: [email protected]
Or whatsApp 🦉

Great day! We made wooden frames and threw these and viewed the ground area they had fallen on with our our magnifying glass.
We planted carrot seeds from our plantable books as well as planted the wild cherry stones that were falling beside us.

Everyone sees daisies and dandelions as weeds. You probably know you can eat dandelions but did you know daisies are an edible flower too!
Also, both known for their medicinal uses: dandelion oil is particularly useful for alleviating the chapped skin and soreness and daisies for inflammation and bruises.
I picked both of these today and on a low heat added to melted coco butter for 45 minutes and cooled in fridge in heart shaped bun cases.

Owlets @
🍓 Fair

We practised knots on our loom, we talked about bees and children had bags of lavender to find in the forest. We used glaze balls to look at the canopies. This afternoon we cooked cakes in oranges, firelighting. Stories with Mr Foxs' friends who brought celery, onion, potatoes for a stew!

Jubilee theme today! We made Union sticks, made plaiting machines, rafts (floatilla!). Animals and insects with royal names: King Fisher, Royal Admiral, Queen Bee, Princess Ant. Sang songs: Duke of York!
This afternoon we made Nordic braids, picked nettles and had nettle tea with pancakes!

Photos from Owlets Forest School Cambridgeshire's post

We made keyrings with liquid pewter from our fire and a normal wooden cookie version too!!
Children made story spoons and told their stories during hot chocolate time.
We hid pine cones and discussed pine/fir/ spruce cones. We also:
# made walking sticks
# played on our slack line and swing and hammock
# den building
# games