We are lucky enough to have a few outdoor play groups locally including Forest schools. Our favourites have been Wild Ones and Forest Folk Play. Wild Ones started us off on our journey into Forest School and I have very fond memories of spending time in the woods, in nature with Jess and her girls. Sadly Wild Ones closed. Most recently we have become keen Forest Folk and have been welcomed as part of the forest folk family. Jo encourages hands-on learning and nature exploration, independence and collaborative play.
Here are some typical forest school activities:
1. Nature Collections: Children search for specific items in the forest, promoting observation skills and familiarity with local flora and fauna. Carry a basket to collect your finds to use in the mud kitchen, or create a pattern, count them, draw them. You can also make nature crowns by adding self adhesive double sided tape to a cardboard crown, the children can then collect natural treasures to add to their crown. This principle also works with a stick – wrap it in double sided sticky tape and encourage children to collect leaves and flowers and stick them to their stick…its not just a stick!
2. Forest Bathing: If you haven’t tried this, you must! It’s a great excuse to grab a blanket and a flask of something warm, find a quiet spot in the woods / forest, set out your blanket, lay down on it and look up at the trees, the nests in the trees, the birds, the clouds. What can you hear? What can you see? What can you smell? Not only is this great for adults’ mindfulness and wellbeing, but it is equally great for children.
3. Tree Identification: Learning to identify different tree species based on leaves, bark, and other characteristics.
4. Outdoor Crafts: Creating artwork using natural materials found in the forest, fostering creativity and appreciation for the environment. Making stick, leaf and feather brushes to paint with. Playdough making – adding natural finds. Punch leaves to create nature confetti – great for fine motor skills.
5. Potion Making and Mud Kitchens: Potion making is always popular at Forest School – using nature to create soups and stews, mixing and stirring, making concoctions. A mud kitchen is usually a popular hang out for the children.
6. Cascades: Children love to watch water gushing down channeling. Creating dams and creating a faster flow or slower flow. Not only water, but we have seen pinecones racing down the channeling, acorns, silver reflective balls, even diggers! You can get the stands, plastic guttering and bamboo guttering from here.
7. Campfires: Teaching outdoor cooking skills and fire safety, allowing kids to prepare simple snacks in a supervised environment. I must admit – our time at forest schools have taught us that the fire is THE most popular activity for the children and adults. Jo taught us how to light a fire, make kindling – collecting super thin, dry sticks. Secrets to get the fire lit when it just wouldn’t go! Balancing marshmallows on a long stick over the fire to cook, not leaving it too long so that it dropped off into the fire! Not standing down wind in the smoke, how to put it out, Using a fire steel flint to create a spark – Finlay felt so proud when he mastered this and got a spark! Songs and stories around the fire – you can’t beat it!
8. Leaf Kebabs: A simple and fun activity to explore falling leaves in autumn. Leaves of all colours – collect them up and spear them on a foraged stick. They look great, and whilst you collect the leaves you can talk about the colours, the seasons and leaf identification.
9. Den Building: Building basic shelters using branches and leaves, promoting teamwork and problem-solving skills. Add simple pegs and camo netting to enhance this activity.
10. Nature Journaling: Keeping a nature journal to record observations, sketches, and thoughts during outdoor experiences. A great activity to do tree bark rubbings and leaf rubbings in a journal.
11. Pond Dipping: Exploring ponds and streams, identifying aquatic life and understanding ecosystems. We particularly loved splashing in puddles and streams! We didn’t pond dip as such as we preferred to just watch and look with our eyes – not disturbing nature. The pond at Forest Folk was full of frogspawn and noisy, lively ‘activity’ in the spring – fascinating – this always encouraged further activities at home to learn about the lifecycle of a frog.
12. Woodland Games: Playing games like “a number hunt” adapted for a forest setting, incorporating maths and numeracy and enhancing physical activity and teamwork. We loved these hanging number indents from Cosy.
13. Storytelling and Circle Time: Gathering to share stories, songs, or discussions related to nature and the environment.
14. Climbing trees: A simple one! Why not add a slack line, rope ladder, swing or hammock to the trees?
These activities aim to foster a love for nature, environmental stewardship, teamwork, and self-confidence. Let me know what you think in the comments. Please share to your socials if you love the ideas in the post, then others can try them.
Other activities include:
- whitling
- rock counting
- balancing
- clay – clay faces or insects on tree trunks, make a hedgehog with a large clay body with sticks stuck in for the spines.
- mushroom hunt (instil danger with mushrooms – children can still look and learn)
- insect hunt
- nails hammered into an old pumpkin
- chalking on tree trunks
- weaving
- blackberry picking; then make blackberry ink paint, paint on an old cloth / bed sheet hanging from the trees
- make nature paint brushes with a stick, leaves and feathers
- plant seeds
- plant trees
- make a bug hotel
- making nature rainbows
- leaf confetti
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