Tuesday 27th January 2015
On our walk across the field to our woodland we spotted a cluster of evergreen trees. We learnt that these trees were called ‘pine trees’ and saw pine cones growing on them. We all got to collect the pine cones off the ground and took them to our woodland. This was very exciting. 
Some of us spotted Explorer Ted when we played our game ‘1, 2, 3, where are you?’ He was sitting in another evergreen tree which had shiny, spiky green leaves. It was a holly tree! Explorer Ted looked very happy to be found!
This week we got to explore things that you might find in the woodland and some things that you wouldn’t expect see. In his bag, Explorer Ted had found a pine cone, a stone and a plastic ball…we have never seen a tree that grows plastic balls!!! 
In fact there were lots of strange objects in our woodland, which we had great fun finding and sorted into woodland and non-woodland groups. Aaah that’s better, our woodland is back to normal! 
Using natural materials we produced our own woodland art, and got inspiration from looking at work by Andy Goldsworthy, an artist who uses natural materials in his sculptures and land art. We were really pleased with our creations and enjoyed showing our friends what we had made. 
We are all fascinated by the hidden treasures within the woodland and love to go exploring to discover new and interesting things. 
To conclude this week’s session we learned an action song for naming the parts of a tree. Here are the words so you can sing it too…
Forest School Tree Song
Sing to tune of “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes…”
Leaves, branches, trunk and roots,
Trunk and roots.
Leaves, branches, trunk and roots,
Trunk and roots.
With sun and rain to make our tree grow
Leaves, branches, trunk and roots,
Trunk and roots.
Actions:
Leaves ~ shake your hands
Branches ~ wave arms
Trunk ~ rub tummy and sides
Roots ~ stamp feet
We think Mr. Marshment made an excellent tree!