We had another active day becoming pine martens and discovering berries. We climbed with the ropes, threaded berries, wrote to grandmother tree, built dens and played games. We were creative and imaginative and kind. We challenged ourselves and each other. We had fun. We learned with and from nature.

Sit spot

Each session we all have a sit spot together. This is designed to give us a connection to the natural world through observation and reflection. A lot of the rest of the session is spent interacting with others, being active in our bodies, creating things and doing things, chatting and expressing excitement and sharing our findings or working with others in the group. And the sit spot is a chance to be with ourselves and nature and to ignore other people (and dogs!) so that we can focus on the natural world through our senses. The benefits can include deeper sensory awareness, developing curiosity, improving creativity, feelings of peace and calm and wonder and awe. Afterwards we always share what we noticed which helps us to remember that moment and widen our perspectives from each other observations.

During sit spot this week we noticed:

• there was a elder tree right beside me with berries on it
• loads of pine cones on the tree and I felt really peaceful
• it’s hard to lie down in a tree but I did what I thought was impossible and did it!
• the pine cones on the tree and the wind breezing in my face and I loved the look of the ocean sparkling
• the way the clouds moved – sometimes rain gand sometimes quietening down
• the wind was nice and peaceful and I loved the was the trees were moving around and I made a poem in my head about it
• loads of things moving
• I was lying on a rock and it had some moss on it and loads of plants around me. It was like a little island in the sea.
• how different the clouds moved compared to how the trees moved
• pine needles falling on my head

Have a look at the photos to see some of the variety of what goes on in Forest school.