The Nurture Circle

Because it was just rude not too…

The intricacies of nature become even more stunning and magical in the snow- the geometric wonder of a spiders web, the branches of a tree all covered in snow down to the very tips of the leaves, the crunching under foot and dragons puff in the air

When the elves arrive in the woods… the children loved making a home for them in the root of our special sideways tree!

Nature Cards for Christmas- the children chose different ferns and ground plants to create their cards either sticking the leaves directly onto the paper or using the hammer for some hapa Zome to make their Christmas trees. They decorated them using paint, pens, stickers and flowers

The last of our beautiful autumnal colours on our walk up to site!

Christingles for Advent - today we made Christingles and laid them out inside our wreath and lit them thinking about the importance of togetherness, peace and joy in the lead up to Christmas and across the world.

Autumn Playdough with woodland animal footprints and natural objects - we’ve had fun exploring the last of Autumn before our winter months start - we loved using sticks and pine cones for rolling and poking and making footprints to match to our animals

Den Building - determination, resilience and problem solving skills at their best- this den was an amazing collaboration between some of our children which led to deep immersive play around war digging trenches and serving out rations in their military roles

This 🙌- children are so able to manage their own risks and know their own limits- as adults if we constantly hover and stop them from making their own judgements we slowly strip children of trusting their own senses and build fear where bravery should be

YES! Here's to the positive power of our trust in children! Great reminder from the legendary Maggie Dent 🌟

What a beautiful day for a bit of autumnal painting in the woods

Building Structures- this week we have been demonstrating excellent team work, problem solving and imaginative skills whilst building our own structures to climb on in our tree using pallets, planks, crates, ropes and ladders.

One of my most favourite smells and I love how lush all the trees and meadow look after the rain too - their colours are even more vibrant somehow

Our Robin has been causing lots of excitement on site as he has become so friendly and often comes to join us around the woods singing and dancing as he goes

Clay Faces- look at all the wonderful characters the children made out of clay on our tree trunk this week…

💚We had two new friends joining us very kindly gifted from one of our forest school families and we took them out on their first woodland adventure with us today💚

We had the most wonderful afternoon in the woods with lots of Families who attended our Family Fun Day in association with The National Autistic Society - Sutton Branch - Thank you all so much for coming and sharing your wonderful children with us- we hope to have many more such afternoons with you all!

I volunteer for the National Autistic Society Sutton where today we held a wonderful forest family fun day. Lots of wonderful famalies turned up with children ranging from 8 months to 15 years and the feedback was all positive. This was all in association with the amazing Geri and Pippa of the The Nurture Circle its incredible how accessible activities can be when surrounded by nature. This group really showcased the importance of environment to support engagement and participation.

Autumn Lanterns- look at these beautiful Autumn Lanterns we made today- so very simple but effective… and the children loved collecting up different autumn leaves from around our woods!

Sometimes all you need is a hammock and a really good book

MuD MuD GloRiouS MuD… our children love mud and all this wet weather has been perfect for all the jumping, splashing, sliding, rolling but particularly throwing at our targets around the woods

A Beautiful Autumnal Day to walk in the woods and see all the amazing colours, smell all the wonderful smells and absorb all the wonders of nature!

Remembrance Day Poppies - lest we forget.

We ❤️ Large Moveable Loose Parts- from conker catapult to conker run to obstacle course and so much more- large loose parts create endless opportunities for using our imaginations, team work and problem solving skills and allow children to assess and manage their own risky play

Our Robin on site is a very friendly and curious little chap who loves to join in with all our adventures in the woods… this week we gave him a seed ball as a thank you and we’re very excited to watch him come to eat it… it helped us to practice our own stillness and connection in the woods

Mud Sliding- what could be more fun on a super rainy day- the children loved the challenge of staying on their feet and the woods were filled with laughter when they didn’t

Fireworks Pictures - we had loads of fun in the woods today creating our own fireworks pictures printing with flowers to make our marks

Our new half of term starts tomorrow and we can’t wait to welcome all our lovely children and families back to the woods for more forest school fun!

It’s the spookiest night of the year and we kindly ask that you don't leave your pumpkin ‘treats’ in the forests for the wildlife. Pumpkins can make some wildlife poorly and spread disease.

Why not try our top ‘tricks’ for things to do with your pumpkins instead…

🎃 Make a hearty and delicious soup
🎃 They are 90% water so are a great composting material
🎃 Loaded with vitamins A, C and E that are all known to fight wrinkles, pumpkins are a skin superhero – so why not make a facemask?!
🎃 Recycle the tough outer skin to make a temporary bird feeder for your garden to help them get through the cold winter months

🎃 HAPPY HALLOWEEN 🎃
We’ve had great fun mixing spooky potions in our mud kitchen and going on a spooky scavenger hunt around our woods…

🧙‍♀️BROOMSTICK RACE PAINT TRACK - we have had so much fun flying around our woodland on our broomsticks leaving paint trails across our paper paths!

Our children have loved making spider 🕷 hotdogs over the fire… we cut the ends of each hot dog into four and then as they cook the ends split our making the perfect forest school spooky snack 🎃

Out enjoying the autumn colours

Pumpkin Patch Creations

We had a most inspiring and life affirming training day on ‘supporting children with anxiety and trauma’ with the wonderful Jon Cree on Sunday - lots of food for thought, supporting strategies and an ethos we can truly get behind as Forest school leaders!

Pumpkin Patch- we are getting very excited for our Halloween specials this week for our children but just look at [email protected] the creations that came out of our pumpkin patch last week….

Den Building in spontaneous play- a group of our older boys spent most of one session building a den together across our climbing tree- great collaborative play to support their storyline that has been developing over the last three weeks in the woods

Our basket swing is such a popular play space - children use it for relaxing, spinning, jumping, stunts, to go to space, as a prop in their play and in so many ways… we like finding new spaces for our swing to go to extend exploration and often find that a new space may interest and inspire different children in new ways…

Mini Munchkin Paint Run - we may have been a bit quiet on our social channels but it definitely doesn’t mean we haven’t been having fun in the woods- what a fabulous activity for promoting scientific discovery in nature whilst having lots of messy, sensory fun!

Muddy Puddle Colour Mixing

Look at our lovely leaf owls that have been flying around our woods 🦉 twit twoo