Forest School
Forest Bugs
Sunflower Lodge Forest School
We are proud and love that we are able to offer a very unique forest school experience for children of all ages at Sunflower Lodge.
Our forest school programme is held at Springfield Festival gardens. In partnership with them we have our own area of the gardens where the children can play safely. We provide waterproof suits for all ages meaning whatever the weather we can get out there and play. Detailed risk assessments have been carried out and our outings are on a one adult to two children ratio. We travel too and from Springfield’s in our nursery car and have brought new car seats with 5 point harnesses for the younger children.
Law Law has completed her forest school leader level 3 qualification, she leads and plans the sessions for the children each week. Every week there is something new and fun to explore in the forest, from painting with natural paint brushes to building dens, having a campfire and enjoying toasted marshmallows. Our younger children enjoy lots of sensory activities in the woods, looking for our favourite story characters such as the Gruffalo hiding in the trees!!
Being outdoors...
There is so much evidence that tells us the importance of outdoor experiences for children and many theorists like Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) believed that children construct their own learning from experiencing it. We could not agree with this more and therefore offering these sensory, exploratory experiences will give the children rich learning experiences and hopefully start them on a journey to loving nature and being outdoors. There will be so many opportunities to see, touch, smell and even taste while experiencing this and of course all the fresh air is great!
