Year 6 (Shark 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 have been getting up to each week!

Shark Class started their Forest School sessions on Tuesday 14th and Friday 17th January.  Sessions will continue every week until we finish for Easter at the beginning of April.

You can have a look at the planning for our Forest School sessions by clicking on the "Planning and Risk Assessments" Tab.  Here you will also see the letter sent home to parents during the first week back after Christmas, which gives details of appropriate clothing and footwear, although I am sure most of you are familiar with this by now!

On Tuesday 7th January, Miss T gave a brief Health and Safety update in the Year 6 classroom, just to re-familiarise everyone with our expectations during our Forest School sessions this term.

Various members of staff from school will be accompanying Miss T each week, and Marg Kimber, a local resident, and a member of the Stonebroom HAF team, who is familiar to most of you, will join us in the woodland and on the Animal Park when she is able.  Sam, Miss T's son will also be joining us for some of our sessions to share his gardening knowledge too!

Session 3 - 28th and 31st Jan

Pond work and woodland litter pick

The Animal Park was extremely muddy this week, but at least it wasn't frozen.  We made sure all our animals had everything they need to stay happy and healthy, and Miss T was really impressed with our team work and communication skills.  On Friday, a group decided to clean out one of the duck ponds because it was full of mud, so they had a discussion on how best to do this, then proceeded to empty the pond with buckets to get all the water out, then tipped all the mud well away from the pond so it didn't filter back in!  We left it refilling while we went into the woodland.  Both groups interacted really well with all the animals, and even Neddy, our shy goat, was happy to have a fuss and some food out of the fruit buckets.

We went down to the pond this week and on Tuesday, we found that the dams that separate the three ponds had been destroyed.  This is quite disheartening, because all the water simply drains away down to the river.  We discussed the need for the dams, to keep the water in the pond for when the pond life returns in a few weeks.  We saw a lot of fresh water shrimp, and some water beetles, but there is no sign of the frogs yet.  We split into two groups and one group went off to litter pick around the woodland, the other group stayed and worked hard to rebuild the dams and it was incredible how quickly the water levels rose in the bottom two ponds once our dams were secure.  We used rocks, sticks and lots of sticky clay to make the dams, so hopefully they will be strong enough to keep the water in the ponds so the creatures will have  better chance of survival.  

After 20 minutes, we swapped groups and the others went litter picking around a different part of the woodland.  On Tuesday, we found a total of 428 pieces of litter, and on Friday we found a total of 278 pieces of litter, which is great because that has now been removed from the woodland, but really sad too because it shouldn't be there in the first place!

A very productive week, Year 6, well done!

Session 2 - 21st and 24th January

Winter Scavenger Hunt

Even though it's only week 2, nearly everyone was happy and confident to go and get on with the various jobs on our Animal Park.  It's important to remember that we need to make sure all the animals have plenty of fresh food, water, bedding and cuddles each week.  They really do look forward to our visits and thrive on the interaction they receive from all of us!

The Animal Park was very muddy, as it usually is at this time of the year, so we did end up coming back to school, slightly muddier than when we went out!  Some of these year 6's just can wait to "fall over" in the mud!

We went into the woodland this week and Miss T gave us a Winter Scavenger Hunt to complete.  This involved finding lots of different natural items, eg. small cones, lichen covered twigs, rough oak tree bark and smooth and shiny cherry bark, but the most difficult item to find, was a skeleton leaf!  Once the other items on the list had been ticked off, everyone became absolutely determined to find the elusive skeleton leaf, and I must say that our Friday group found a couple of absolutely perfect specimens, which we are going to laminate and put on our FS display in the corridor!  Well done TK and Arlo for finding these in the meadow and the pond. We found a few more after this, and we learned that the best ones are found in water!  Once we had discovered lichen covered branches, we found them everywhere, and we discovered that there are several different kinds / colours.  Lichen is "a symbiotic organism that grows on rocks and trees that is made up of algae and fungi.  It is important for nutrient cycling and soil formation".  On Tuesday we found a huge clump of jelly ear fungus.  This is a non poisonous fungus, and is very floppy and squishy to touch.  It can be eaten, but should be cooked first, even though non of us thought it looked particularly appetising!

Miss T, Mr James and Marg were very impressed with the enthusiasm of both groups for this activity.  It was fascinating to watch everyone find more and more things and this activity inspired so many interesting questions!

While we were walking around the woodland, we talked about the areas where we will be working over the coming weeks.  We are hoping to start a wild flower meadow, which will encourage pollinators into the woodland; we will be mending the dams on the ponds and looking for signs of life as we move into Spring.  On Friday, we did see some tiny pond leeches, some fresh water shrimp and a few water beetles, so this shows that creatures are beginning to wake up after a long cold winter.

Have a look at our photos below...

Our First Week of Forest School - 14th and 17th Jan

Revisiting the Animal Park

Oh, I just have to say how lovely it was to have this class back in Forest School!  It was amazing how much you remembered, Year 6 and we had two absolutely super sessions on the Animal Park this week!

We had a job list, so you could all take time to remember what jobs we need to do every week.  We talked about what is needed to care for our animals and we remembered the 7 S's, to help us to do this.  These are things that all the animals (and us too!) need on a daily basis to make sure they stay happy and healthy.  They are Shelter, Space, Sustenance (food and water), Stimulation (things to play with), Safety, Sentiment (love and attention), Sanctuary (to feel safe, and have all these things, so they are happy and fulfilled).

Everyone worked so hard and made sure that all our jobs were ticked off the list.  It's important to make sure you do different jobs each week, so you all understand how much there is to do.  The animals were all very pleased to see us, and we took the fruit buckets from school down to feed everyone.  We have to remember to feed Olive, our little pink pig.  She doesn't come out of her enclosure very much when people are around because she gets a bit scared around a lot of people, so we just need to make sure she gets lots of fuss through the fence.  We also threw some fruit bits into Hamish, Dottie and Donut, who live in the big field in the woodland.  They were happy to see us too!

The Animal Park is very muddy, especially after all the frost and snow that has recently melted.  We made sure all the animals had fresh water to drink and we dug channels in the streams that flow out of the duck ponds to make sure the water flowed away properly.  We put hay in the goat sheds and we collected some eggs.  Miss T said that there aren't very many eggs at the moment, because the ducks and hens are having a bit of a rest over the winter months, but they should start laying more when the days get a bit longer.  Some of us rebuilt the barricade at the back of the Animal Park.  This is where lots of sticks and branches are piled up so the goats don't escape and go and eat the playing field!

A lot of us really enjoyed getting muddy too, so once all the jobs were done, we painted our faces and jumped around in the mud in Horace's enclosure.

We'll be visiting the woodland next week Year 6.  We'll go and have a look at the pond area, the meadow and the main Forest School site.

Meanwhile have a look at our muddy photos from this week.