Forest School Week 6 Afternoon and All Day Nursery

It was a very cold day, which gave us the extra challenge of looking after our bodies and keeping ourselves warm. The children made sure to wear their hats and gloves, keep their hoods up, move their bodies and warm their hands by tucking them into their armpits! We talked about wearing more layers next term to keep us even warmer.

After our welcome song, count and rules we played our name game. The children's confidence has grown so much since September and they enjoyed showing their individuality through their actions. 

Getting in the Christmas spirit, we played a calm game involving a jingle stick. The children needed to pass the jingle stick around the circle without it making a noise - it was so tricky! Activities like this help the development of the children's concentration and focus skills while creating a sense of community as we all work together to reach a common goal. Once we'd had a go moving it silently we passed it round again, this time giving it a good jingle as we passed.

For the rest of the session, some children had a go at making a jingle stick, using the pipe cleaners to twist round a Y stick and threading bells on.  Other children enjoyed decorating 'wood cookies' using brightly coloured pens to make tree decorations.  

We also had some children enjoying digging in the mud and running round the site with the forest friends in order to keep warm.

We finished our session gathered back at the log circle with a warming hot chocolate. We observed the steam rising and thought about how to stay safe when drinking hot drinks. As we waited for the drinks to cool down we shared our ideas for keeping warm in the cold. And finally we enjoyed a rendition of Jingle Bells accompanied by our newly created Jingle sticks :)