Forest School provides an excellent opportunity to bring learning to life allowing young people to explore and learn in a constructive way. This inspirational process increases self-confidence, self-esteem, improves individuals’ ability to work co-operatively and counters a lack of motivation and negative attitude towards learning, while offering the opportunities to take risks, make choices and initiate learning for themselves.
Last Monday we got to go to our new activity for the next few Mondays. Forest Schools, its where we learn outdoor activities such as making safe fires if your camping, and we are also clearing up the forest a little. We are clearing all the bad-wire and making some steps for steep bits of the woods.
On Monday we just got to know the forest fire really, our boundaries and all that. We collected wood and logs for seats and the fire, once we made the fire we cooked sausages. And at the end we had a activity where you blinded your partner and took him or her to a tree and let them feel it then took them back to the base and they had to guess which tree they where at. This was a good guessing game.
This Monday I didn’t go to the Forest Schools.
The first week we were all just getting to no each other. When we got there Lorraine the women who is working with us, she showed us through the woods and how to get back to camp. When we got back to camp we started to make a fire and I made the hot chocolate mmmmmmmm!!!!! Then we made sausages on the fire mmmmmmm!!!! After lunch Lorraine led us to an obstacle course were we got blind folded and had to hold on to a bit of string it felt like it went on forever and seemed more longer than when we got to see it ….it was a great experience.
The second week we really just were tidying up the wood me and Emma had to go round picking all the stacks and tubes up there were hundreds. I and Emma were in charge of making the fire it was hard wok but it was defiantly better than last weeks, Jordan made the hot chocolate but mine tasted better by far……. I also helped make the food we made French bread and sausages and complements to the chef…..by the end we were to fallow a bit of string but not get blind folded we had to look for objectives that Lorraine had put there I got 11 out of 20…finally we had to tidy up the fire and logs as if we hadn’t been there…..
We got a mini bus to Wood hall then jumped of the mini bus and got our boots and overalls then left our bags and walk about 3 minutes until we got to the base bit, Lorraine set the logs up for the fire and got it set up. Everyone got sent to get wood that was dry and not wet, once we done that me and Shaun lifted an bit log that was very heavy then we got asked to go do hard coring.
Me, Mr bell and Shaun went where the mini bus was and got some hard core then went to the muddy patch where the cars drove in from it was deep muck we dug and chucked the dirt to the side and done some barbwire, cut the barbwire and rolled it up then had a little brake and got something to eat then went back to the muddy bit and dug for 1 hour and got some more hard core and put it down we done half of it.
Then we went back up and Amy and Emma where starting the fire then we got some onions Shaun chopped them up and I cracked some eggs into a jug, then we made French toast with onions it was very nice, then went up to the activity when we got there it was like a blue wire going under and thought the woods under tree’s and we went one after an other we had to try spot objects that wouldn’t meant to be there. There was 20 objects and I only found 18 of them and we headed back to the mini bus and went home.
We met up in the SVS room and waited on the mini bus. When the mini bus arrived we loaded up then went up to hood hall. We parked the mini bus and got are overall on. we got out the mini bus and waited on the others that where still getting ready, so we were mucking around on the ice, picking bits up and head butting it and smashing it, when every one was ready we took a walk around the woods .once we had a walk about and we knew are way about we wade a base we started a fire and cocked some lunch, we played some games on a log and done a blindfold game, we made a shelter so if it rains then we could stay dry . once we had done all that we put the fire out and made it so it looked like we were never there .after a long day we went home.
We all went on the bus to get to the camping place there we met Larraine and Sarah they told us about the trees and what and how and why you shouldn’t cut or hurt an alive tree. She then told us to get dead sticks or wood for the fire. Then after we where given jobs to do I was collecting the plastic things that were used to help baby trees after we did that Sarah showed us how to tie and keep the together its was a little hard but I guess it could have been harder.
And after hours of hard erm…work we had break I guess I could
Of get more food with me it was also cold there but what I hated most was that there wasn’t a fish and chips around there haha. After that we got the fire started yay the wanders of heat from fire anyways I hated the dam smoke haha my eye couldn’t stop watering
Last Monday the class got a new activity its called forest skills we get out of class for this activity
· We do fun activities round the forest
· We do team building skills
· Communication skills
· other various skills
· wild cooking
Week 1
Went to school at the normal time, went to registration and then went to the the class room. We went on the computers for 10 minutes. Then we got our wellies and our grey suits. Then the bus came. I was feeling excited. I felt sorry for my friends as they had to stay at school and work. On the bus I was sitting beside Amy. We met Lorraine and she was nice she knew a lot about the forest. And she had a student with her, Paul. He was nice. When we got there all of the trees were covered in snow. It felt like Christmas again. We got our grey suits on in the bus and the wellies, as the ground was muddy. When we were all ready we started walking. Lorraine was telling us about the trees and was quiet intresting. I didn’t know there was so many types of trees. We had to find a nice place to sit down to light a fire etc. so we found a nice warm and flat. We found some logs so we used them as seats. Lorraine was telling us what type of twigs to find for the fire. She told us that it had to be the size of your thumb and the thickness of your pinkie. Mr bell had brought sausages and choc. Amy made hot chocolate and it was very nice. Was nice to have something warm as it got pretty chilly. I didn’t have anything from the fire since I’m a veggie. So I just eat the food I had brought. After Lunch we started doing some activites. We made a shelter from tar polling. And we did this wee game where we got blind folded and had to follow this rope but watch out for branchies and had to go through trees. It was very scary but was very good. I enjoyed it. (: that was a fab day <3
Week 1= in the morning before we left we got overalls and gloves and we waited 10 minutes until the mini bus came and we all went on the bus and it took 15 minutes to get there we finally got there and we got our overalls on and our boots on and we all went outside and went in a cycle and we got a sock and passed it to a person that you didn’t know and then say their name and we walked around the forest and got to know the place and got to know where we were going and then we had to find a place to sit and to make a fire and then we had our lunch and then after lunch we had to make a shelter so if it rains we could go in it and then we had to go around a obstacle course blind folded and then we had to find a partner and they had to find a tree and we had to hug it feel it and then we had to go to the place we started and then take our blind fold off and find that tree and then we went back to the camp and then sat down and then talked about what we enjoyed and then we got back in the mini bus and got our overalls off and boots and then we went back to school and then went home
