We had our first of six Forest School sessions with Gráinne and Veronica on the 4th of May. Junior Infants will have their sessions first thing in the morning and Senior Infants will travel to Lee’s Road after sos.
Gráinne and Veronica are in Lee’s Road from 8a.m. preparing for our arrival and the space they create each week is amazing. There are picnic benches, a perimeter marked by red ribbons, a canopy, two handwashing stations and even a toilet!
At the beginning of our first session we chose our forest animal names which was very exciting. We hung our animal names from a piece of string that was hanging between trees. We played ‘Hide and Seek’ and ‘Sparrowhawk’. We ate a delicious picnic that Sarah prepared for us. We listened to a wonderful story and created animals using clay. We made homes for our animals and are looking forward to searching for them next week!
On Thursday, the 11th of May, we had our second Forest School session. It was wonderful to meet with Gráinne and Veronica again. We asked the beech guardian tree if we could enter the woods again and thankfully the tree moved its branches to indicate that we were welcome. Some of our clay animals were still there waiting for us. Others had moved on! We played games, sang songs, sanded and drew on beautiful pieces of wood, bounced on ropes and built fairy homes!
Our third session took place on the 18th of May. Some of us chose to be blindfolded and found our way through the forest by holding onto a rope. Others kept their eyes open for the activity. We made beautiful friendship bracelets and special soups for the trees. Gráinne told us another wonderful story about being kind to each other and helping others. We played ‘Sparrowhawk’ and ‘Hide and Seek’. Our hiding places are getting better and better! “One, two, three, where are youuu?”
We had our fourth session on the 25th of May. Ben came along today. It was a beautiful, sunny day and we saw many shades of green among the leaves. We sang songs, added to our information sheets about our individual forest animals, built a home for Ben using mallets and sticks, played ‘Hide and Seek’, ate our picnic and created faces using natural materials. Our faces had lots of different expressions on them. Some of us used moss as hair. One face had eight eyes!
Our fifth Forest School session took place on the 30th of May. We learned two new games called ‘Sneak ‘n’ Snatch’ and ‘Sardines’ which were both a lot of fun. We’re looking forward to playing ‘Sneak ‘n’ Snatch at school. We rested on a hammock while Gráinne sang “Swing swong, all day long, look up at the sky and trees” to us. It was very relaxing. One child imagined pancakes were falling from the sky while we played ‘Sparrowhawk’. We did a cool orienteering activity too. We love Forest School.
Our final Forest School session was on Thursday, the 8th of June. We played all of our favourite games. Veronica had laminated all of our animal information cards and we enjoyed looking at those. The children had drawings and a ‘Thank You’ card for Gráinne and Veronica and we went through them together at lunch time. We created beautiful headbands using strips of material, flowers, leaves and mallets. Thanks for a truly fantastic experience!
Thanks also to David and David for driving us to Lee’s Road every week. Thank you Sarah for preparing our delicious snacks and lunches to-go and thanks to Amber for teaching us!
