Forest school club 21st and 22nd June

In the latest sessions the children went on a hunt for leaves, flowers and other items in the woods, to complete an egg box collection. This activity was an invitation to slow down and take a close look – an opportunity to appreciate the wonderfully diverse shapes and colours that nature produces.

Due to the generosity of a local land owner, we now have a site where we can collect leafy tree branches and fresh bamboo. These new materials will encourage the children to experiment with different ways to build dens and other structures in the jungle. Some of the materials have already been used, including weaving stiff bamboo into the side walls of the willow tunnel. These spars will be in place temporarily, to help to train the willow across the wider gaps.
Hopefully this new site will also provide suitable materials for mat-making on a woodland weaving loom.

Summer holiday forest school sessions
Some spaces are still available. Five hour sessions (10am to 3.00pm) 27th July, and 3rd/10th/31st August. Club members and non-club members all welcome. £20 non-members, £18 members.

If you have any queries or would like to:
• enrol your child in a session
• help to build new resources
• donate materials
• share a traditional skill or craft with the group

Please call Jayne on 07984655688 or email jaynewheatley2001@hotmail.com

Please read on to find out about Sports Day (x2!), the Summer Fair, fairies, life skills, a visit to RMB Chivenor and everything else that has happened around the classes…

We have been able to shift a few things around so that we can try to run the races tomorrow morning. We aim to start at 9.30am and be finished by 11.30am. Children can come to school in their PE kits and you are most welcome to come and watch the races.

Please continue to monitor this website for any last minute news, including checking before you set off tomorrow. 

The children did wonderfully well this morning, but the temperature is rising so we have made the decision to cancel the races this afternoon. At 1pm children will return to their classes and can be collected at 3.30pm.  If you were planning to arrive early to have lunch with your children, please do still come. 

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Please read on to find out Sports Day arrangements, what has been happening around the classes and much, much more… 

The arrangements for Sports day are as follows…

Sports Day will (fingers crossed!) take place next Tuesday, the 20th June and activities will start at 9:30.
• All children from Dolphins to Year 6 will be in house groups and will complete twelve activities in their teams. You are welcome to come and support your children and their team mates from 9:30.
• At the end of the activities, we will speedily clear away for the long distance races. Children will need to sit in their classes. Spectators will need to move to the playground side of the field.
• When the long distance races are complete, children will go back to their classrooms. Parents are welcome to collect their children from their classrooms, to share a picnic lunch together.
• The afternoon will be for children in classes 1 – 6. They will sit with their classes and compete in races to score points for their house team. Again, you are welcome to come and support your children.
• When the races are complete, you will be welcome to take your children home, but please make sure that you have let their class teacher know.
• All children will need a sun hat, a water bottle with their name on and sun cream. They can come to school wearing their PE kits, if possible they can wear t-shirts the colour of their house

We look forward to seeing as many of you tehre as possible.

Forest school club 7th and 8th June

The latest sessions offered the opportunity to create a woodland Boggit (stick person with a clay/mud head) and the children responded by being really creative and using leaves, flowers and other items to create facial features, hair and clothes. Some children then made a Boggit house and constructed furniture. The older children have been improving their den building skills, and are now interested in building a child-sized house in the village area, at the top of the woodland site. We will be looking at how buildings have been constructed in the past to help us to decide how we might do this. Plans for the Kids’ Kingdom are also coming along, and the children have been asked to produce some drawings, to help us to understand their design ideas.

Wings (a local charity that gives youths who are not currently in employment, education or training the opportunity to learn a new skill and gain self-esteem) has kindly offered the services of their woodworking team, to build us some sturdy work-benches for our forest woodworking area. Our groups can then use this open-air workspace to create their own bird boxes and insect homes for the site.

We will also be sharing some basic leatherworking skills with the children, so please don’t throw away any old leather jackets or leather furniture covers – we can make useful collecting pouches and tool bags from these!

Things we need for the forest (please).

Scrap leather

We also still need unwanted rope, cord, string, wool etc. (for den building, knot tying practice and crafts).

If you have any queries or would like to:

• enrol your child in a session

• help to build new resources

• donate materials

• share a traditional skill or craft with the group

please call Jayne on 07984655688 Or email jaynewheatley2001@hotmail.com

Tag rugby, forces, drumming and much. much more, so please read on to find out…

Forest school club 24th 25th May

For the last week before the half-term break the children have been cooking. Some decided to make mini pizzas and others wrapped bread dough around a willow stick and cooked it on the open fire. They were shown how to make props from forked sticks, to support their bread dough sticks at the right height over the fire

Now that the days are warm we will not be lighting a fire every session. This will save the firewood for the cooler months, when a fire will be much appreciated. It is important that we think about how to use the site’s limited woodland resources sustainably. However, the last session for each group at the end of each half term will always be a cooking day, so the children will still be able to enjoy fireside activities in the summer.

The first saw horse has been constructed for us. Thank you to all the parents who help with the making, mending, planting and tidying. The Wednesday group watched a demonstration of how to use the saw and sawhorse correctly (sawing is an activity that is always carried out with supervision) and in the next half of this term both groups will have the opportunity to learn how to safely cut firewood and saw branches to length for crafts and den building.

Some Wednesday group members found a large number of wood lice in a rotten log, and a very large stag beetle. Their finds were shown to the group, and then the insects were returned to where they were found.

On Thursday we were given some bean plants that had been grown from seed in a class activity. We also had some more seed potatoes donated. We are looking forward, later in the year, to cooking our potato crop in the hot embers of the fire.

Things we need for the forest (please): Any unwanted rope, cord, string, wool etc. (for den building, knot tying practice and crafts).

If you have any queries or would like to:
• enrol your child in a session
• help to build new resources
• share a traditional skill or craft with the group

please call Jayne on 07984655688 Or email jaynewheatley2001@hotmail.com

Please read on to find out about lots of local events and activities over half term and beyond, not least the Appledore Village Green Fete on Saturday 3rd June…

It’s started – work on our art studio.

To update you, we are creating a permanent art studio at Appledore School and there is a team, made up of pupils, parents, staff and local artists and trades, that is making this happen. They have been very busy so far and the children in Year 6 have been busy writing letters (click here to see one) requesting materials.

If you know of an organsiation that could donate any of the following, please do contact Kate Harvey on kharvey@appledore-primary.devon.sch.uk:

• Wood panels (eg plywood) for storage cupboards
• Flooring and adhesive
• varnish
• Tiles
• Double sink and plumbing fittings
• trestles
• Aprons
• Hinges
• Coat hooks
• Picture frames (various sizes)
• Canvas and calico
• Paper
• paints
• Inks
• T-shirts -m plain white child sizes

Forest school club 17th 18th May

In these session the groups have been talking about what should be added, improved or changed in the ‘jungle’, including turning the bottom right-hand area (currently just a pile of earth and branches) it into a ‘kids’ kingdom’ by making the most of the slopes and different heights there, to create a mud slide and some scrambling areas, and also planting some willow to create places to hide. As forest school is very much about problem solving and taking responsibility, the children will be hands-on in designing the space, solving any safety or building issues, presenting the design to the headmaster and, if it is approved, helping to build it.

Some of the children have made willow stars this week. Other activities have included planting the remaining flower bed and containers, decorating the story chair with paint/clay handprints and making leaf butterflies and stick people. The children have also been painting and writing in their forest books and making improvements to dens.

With the generous help of some parents, we soon hope to be extending the jungle shed, by connecting a roofed, open-sided area to it. This will provide a space for a wider range of outdoor crafts, no matter what the British weather throws at us. A parent has also kindly offered to build us some child and adult height saw horses, which will hold wood securely, and at the correct height, when using saws. These will be ideal for the tool use area.

We are going to start contacting local businesses for donations of building materials, den thatching materials, ceramic tiles, plants etc. If you know of any business owners or managers who might look kindly upon our request, please do let us know.

Things we need for the forest (please).

Tomato plants

Pea or bean plants (any type).

If you have any queries or would like to:

* enrol your child in a session

* help to build new resources

* share a traditional skill or craft with the group

please call Jayne on 07984655688 Or email jaynewheatley2001@hotmail.com

It’s been a very, very bust and exciting week, including new arrivals, our twelve values, rugby and football success, a visiting traveller and much more. Please read on to find out more…

Forest school club 10th & 11th May

This week we were doing lots of interesting things with earth and clay. We have moved soil to our new raised beds, ready to plant more herbs, vegetables and flowers. Some of the children have also planted pumpkin seeds, to care for at home. While we were moving earth, we thought about how to use spades safely and care for tools. We were excited to see that some leaves are now emerging from the recently planted potatoes (kindly donated by the headmaster).  

Thank you to John for the work he is doing on laying a path to the pond. We hope to be pond-dipping very soon!

Things we need for the forest  – could anyone spare a few veg plants?

If you have any queries or would like to:

• enrol your child in a session
• help to build new resources
• share a traditional skill or craft with the group

please call Jayne on 07984655688 Or email jaynewheatley2001@hotmail.com

Please read on to find out more about our activities this week…