December 2023

Thankfulness and forgiveness

This month we celebrated this special time of year with a yuletide spiral of evergreen branches.  We celebrated all the good things that have happened this year, leaving behind the things that haven't felt so good and forgiving others. We look towards the New Year and new beginnings, thanking God for all our blessings and gifts.

Happy Christmas and Happy New Year to you all!

Kindness, respect, awe and wonder!

We are very lucky to have a variety of wild birds in our Woodland School site. However, I think our favourite has to be the very tame little robin that comes to visit the children each week and has been getting progressively bolder. It will now sit on my hand to eat at times when the woodland school is quiet and calm. The children love to see their little visitor each week!

November 2023

Friendship and perseverance

This month we have been creating willow wreaths and decorating them with natural materials. We have had some wonderful creations, including spider webs with some very large spiders!

The weaving and binding of the wreaths was tricky and fiddly but the children persevered and helped each other - we found that two pairs of hands were definitely easier than one with some of the threading.

Empathy and spiritual understanding

Some stormy weather in November meant that we took our Woodland School sessions inside. Whilst the rain poured down, we stayed cosy and used the opportunity to share some stories using natural materials.

The children were involved in therapeutic storytelling; The Brave Little Tree and also the tale of The Boastful Owls. Through these stories the children learn about everyday challenges and how the characters learn to overcome them.

October 2023

Awe and wonder

Respecting nature

It's been a wonderfully warm October so far, with some rather beautiful invertebrates to be seen; a pale tussock moth caterpillar was quite something to behold! The butterflies have been enjoying the autumn sunshine and some snails eggs held the children's interest for quite some time!

September 2023   

Autumn in full glory!    

Forgiveness, truthfulness, friendship, generosity and kindness    

Friendship bracelets

One of the things that the children love to do is to create friendship bracelets for one another. They have got into the habit of presenting their bracelet and saying why the receiver is special to them. It is a wonderful gift to be told why you are so special to that person! They often use this activity if their has been any fallings out or arguments. It is a wonderful way for the children to learn about forgiveness and telling the truth, giving them agency and control over solving friendship issues and misunderstanding.

September has a been a super-busy month full of beautiful crafting projects. The Autumn brings us many wonderful things - conkers, acorns, seed and nuts, to name but a few! We have been using all these things in our woodland crafts.

The awe and wonder of trees. Thanking God for our wonderful trees!

Thankfulness, respect and courage.

We have been thinking about and celebrating trees.

Our trees in the Woodland School give us so much pleasure with their beauty and shade. We have been enjoying the beech nuts and hazelnuts, straight from their shells. Some of the children have enjoyed climbing the laurel tree with its ladder-like arrangement of branches (only one child per branch at any one time!) They have shown courage and perseverance when climbing in the upper part of the branches, being very careful and testing out each branch before they put their weight on it.

We have been creating thank you prayers and blessings for our beautiful trees.