What the session looks like:

When you arrive at the Forest School site with your little one,

 the fire is lit and we will enjoy some welcoming songs together before we go and explore and play. During free play, there will be a seasonal craft; play with natural materials and get cooking on the campfire. 

After our play, we will gather at the fire for a drink and a snack and some more seasonal songs and a story. After snack, there is plenty of time to play and explore until we gather at the fire for our goodbye song before we go home.

We aim to run the sessions whatever the weather, so make sure you and your child are suitably dressed. The fire will be keeping you warm and the canopy will keep you dry. Bringing an extra change of clothes for your little explorer will help keep little ones happy.

The Sessions are inspired by:

The Forest School Ethos:

Forest school is based on a fundamental respect for children and young people and for their capacity to investigate, test, and maintain curiosity in the world around them.

Read more about Forest School here

The Steiner Ethos:

The priority of the Steiner ethos is to provide an unhurried and creative learning environment where children can find joy in learning and experience the richness of childhood rather than early specialisation or academic hot-housing. The curriculum itself is a flexible set of pedagogical guidelines, founded on Steiner’s principles that take account of the whole child. It gives equal attention to the physical, emotional, intellectual, cultural and spiritual needs of each pupil and is designed to work in harmony with the different phases of the child’s development.

Read more about Steiner here

Explore
During the sessions children are allowed time to explore their surroundings. Giving children time to explore nature at their own terms will give them a life long love for learning and a connection with the natural environment that will last a life time.

Create

Creativity in the outdoors is very important to learn core skills like gross and fine motor skills, creative and critical thinking, speech and social skills. Children will discover how to use open ended materials and manipulate those to develop their imagination and creativity.

Connect

For children to thrive they need meaningful connections and this also counts for the adults in the little ones lives. Whispering Woods runs in blocks to give children and adults the opportunity to get to know eachother and build a 'village'.