Over the last term we have been continuing our visits to Angel Court Residential Home. The children love to share stories about our hens here at Harlow Green, many of the residents remember helping out in the allotments as children so comparing hen related anecdotes is always fun. We decided we woul
This weeks construction challenge was to build a bridge for a bottle. The children were given three lengths of string for use if they chose. They could use only natural sticks, nothing man-made. The bottle had to fit underneath both upright and lying on its side, and the bridge had to be strong enou
Our Year 6 children are now very experienced in the practical skills of Forest School, they have worked hard to develop positive communication strategies and have a confidence and sense of ownership when working outside. From September they have been running their own Forest School sessions. They sp
Our Forest School came alive with the sound of music this week. Inspired by the children, who can often be found banging out rhythms on the odd tree stump. The children were given free reign with the resources to create their own instruments, with some fantastic results. The poly tunnel was raided f
In Forest School we will be introducing some knot work as part of our focus on construction. Last term the children learned about pivot points, how to create rotation points and in class investigated triangulation used in bridge building. We will now extend this topic so the children can build a v
Year 5 spent a lovely afternoon planning and creating their own river beds. They had a variety of materials to choose from: rock, wood, soil, clay, sand, and any other natural materials that they could find in our Forest School. By using any combination of these resources they were tasked with makin
The time has come to clear the poly tunnel ready for some winter planting. The children worked hard collecting tomatoes and cucumbers, we had a bumper crop. The fruits were delicious. The pots were sorted out and stored in boxes and the raised beds were turned over. We have a large amount of leaf mu
Continuing our investigations around the shaduf mechanism, the children were taught how to create a tripod lashing. This follows their reflection on the previous session where the main problem was creating a secure and stable base for the shaduf. We discussed why the tripod is such a useful structur
As Autumn is in full swing, the children enjoyed an afternoon in the September sun clearing our raised beds. They have started to turn over the compost, collect poppy and nasturtium seed pods for drying and began weeding some of our flower beds. Whilst this was going on the children made windy rib
Linking in with the Autumn term topic The River of Life, Year 5 have been investigating shaduf’s, an ancient Egyptian device for transporting water, predominantly for irrigation. The shaduf uses a system of pivoted rotation, with a weight as a counter-balance. The children discussed how they would
