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Our forest school outdoor sessions
Meet the Leaders: Melissa Keenan & Ciara Woods
Melissa & Ciara have both experience facilitating groups of children outdoors in our natural environment.
Melissa completed her Forest School training with Circle of Life Rediscovery equipping her with the ITC level 3 certificate for Forest School leadership. Melissa has 3 years experience with Ash Forest School with after school groups. She is delighted to have the opportunity to bring an outdoor nurture programme to our school on the beautiful grounds of St. Brigid's & St. Patrick’s campus.
Ciara has been involved with Scouting in Drogheda for 15 years and has been a leader with St. Oliver’s Scout group since 2009. During this time, Ciara has worked with the Beaver section (age 6 - 9) , completing and planning many outdoor activities, adventures and camps. It is wonderful to combine both the Scouting skills and Forest School training together to provide a fun and engaging approach to outdoor education for the children in our school.
During this school year, each 3rd and 4th class have had a block of 6 week sessions, whilst 1st and 2nd classes will each experience 3 taster sessions.
We have experienced learning with the seasons, beginning with na sméara dubha and the elderberries in Autumn, creating natural dye and jewellery. We also experimented with natural ivy soap. Our natural surroundings lend themselves to many creative lessons, such as conker rockets, apple printing and apple bobbing at Hallowe’en using apples from the trees on our school grounds.
Winter term found the children creating beautiful natural decorations from found objects in nature and playing lots of warm up games.
We also explored many of the natural elements such as wind strength and direction with our kites and streamers. We explored water with water purification experiments, the sun and its shadows along with many rain showers. Earth was used with planting, strengthening the walls of shelters and digging to locate earthworms and to create pit traps.
Forest school sessions facilitate a lot of self-learning for the children as they learn about plants, animals, birds and nature whilst playing specific nature games and partaking in tailored activities. We have 5 rules at Forest School which focus on taking care of ourselves, each other and nature whilst outdoors. Taking care of our local environment is emphasised with our universal rule of Leave no Trace. Some groups got to take care of our birds by making natural birdfeeders whilst incorporating some leftover lunches. We discovered that the birds really liked the popcorn.
It is hoped to build on the groundwork that has been started this year by adding to our resources. If anyone is clearing out waterproof clothing or wellies that children have outgrown or getting rid of any old kitchen equipment like large spoons, spatulas, mashers, pots, plates, cups etc please drop them in for the forest school team. We would greatly appreciate it as we hope to incorporate a mud kitchen space into future lessons.
Being out in nature has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety levels. No prior knowledge of species names or traits are required to take the family outdoors to explore. Dress appropriately for our ‘4 seasons in a day’ weather and see what you can discover with all your senses. We will look forward to hearing about your nature discoveries during our sessions.
Melissa & Ciara
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