Home Ed Forest School, Team Retreats & Meeting Room in Private Woodland in Small Dole, West Sussex.

This week at Forest Club we’ve been discussing water. We talked about why the forest needs water, how it stores water and we identified all the different bodies of water on our amazing blue planet! 🌎 The children then made their own mini bodies of water. We had ponds, waterfalls, rivers and moats. The children worked hard to construct and modify their designs so that the water flowed correctly. We then cooked toffee-apples over the fire and some of the children got creative using their own snacks. Sugared blackcurrant, olive, tomato, cheese kebab anyone? 😂

This week in our Home-Ed Forest Club sessions we learned about Bees🐝 I was really impressed by the children’s knowledge and they ended up teaching me some interesting facts! We played a bee game incorporating learning about how bees work together as a team with different roles and how they collect nectar. We also made pine cone bees and planted bee-friendly sunflowers. The children also toasted marshmallows and practiced their firefighting skills.

I don’t always talk about the real child-led learning on here but I thought I would just explain my sessions are not all activities. I absolutely love seeing the children exploring the woods, searching under logs for frogs and bugs, making up their own crazy games with friends and laughing together in the hammock. All important child stuff 🙂

This week the Slow Worms were definitely the stars of the show! The children initially thought they were baby snakes, so we discussed the similarities and differences to snakes. We also talked about their prey, predators, habitat, behaviour and how we can help protect them.

We also talked about the importance of being gentle with them and not handling them too much due to their super defence mechanisms! Detaching their wiggling tail to distract a predator and also doing really smelly poos to deter it!

We also discovered that they are not ‘slow’ and they are not ‘worms.’ What interesting creatures they are!

Over the last couple of weeks in our Home Ed sessions we’ve been learning all about the Elder Tree.

The children have learned how to identify Elder and how to safely forage the Elderflowers. The flowers were made into Fritters and cooked over the fire. They also used its wood to make wooden beads.

We discussed Folklore and legends about the Elder Mother who is said to protect the forest. The children made their own animal and tree spirits using clay and natural resources from the forest floor.

The children were also very excited to discover a toad in the ‘Toad Abode’ we had made last year! This started many discussions around life cycles, the differences and similarities between toads and frogs, camouflage, predators and prey.

For the bug fans of Forest Club: At the woods today we found loads of caterpillars all on one tree covered in webs. They had eaten ALL the leaves. We think they will eventually turn in to Ermin Moths 🐛 Video narrated by my son.

This week our home Ed groups have been developing their teamwork and survival skills by completing the Forest Rescue Challenge!

Picture 1: The Challenge: A robot has crash landed in to the Forest. Work as a team to find the robot and rescue!

The groups did an amazing job using their skills in map reading, tracking, shelter building, fire-starting, cooking, first aid, filtering water and attracting attention for rescue! 🚁

I was very impressed by how the children worked together, shared their ideas and organised themselves doing jobs that needed to be done!

Picture 2: The excitement of waiting for the popcorn to pop!

Picture 1: Hapa Zome butterflies.
Picture 2: Huge webs spun by caterpillars that we found nearby.
Picture 3: The children were very excited to find a frog! 🐸

This week we learned about butterflies, moths and caterpillars. Plenty of caterpillars ‘ballooned’ in for us to observe. (Ballooning is a survival strategy where small, newly hatched caterpillars use silk threads to travel by wind to new locations.)

This week in our Home Ed Forest sessions, we followed some mystery twig arrows leading to a magical mini-world! This inspired the children to use their imaginations to make their own worlds. Ideas included a mini Forest School, a mini campsite, a mini dog world, a mini wrestling ring, a mini hotel, fairy worlds and some amazing mini clay characters! We also cooked cookies and brownies wrapped in Hazel leaves over the fire.
Ps the Bluebells used were found on the floor. The children are all very aware of their protected status.

One of my favourite Forest School sessions!

This week our Home Ed groups have been learning about Bioluminescence. These amazing creatures have the superpower of creating light with their bodies! The children had brilliant theories on why different organisms did this. This topic was sparked by discovering Glowworms in our woods a couple of weeks ago. We even found another one today as well as making our own Glowworm lanterns complete with glow stick bodies. Other fun stuff happened such as an impromptu performance of a butterfly’s lifecycle, bug identification, pond dipping, s’mores dragon and eagle games and children turning in to wolves! 😂

It has been lovely to be back in Foxfire Woods this week. In our Home Ed Forest Clubs we’ve been bug hunting, watching tadpoles, making assault courses, making very fancy shelters, lighting fires, toasting crumpets and running around! We have also made ‘Earth seed bombs’ in a nod to celebrating Earth day this week, an easy way to help our planet 🌍 Hopefully we can grow flowers for our pollinators! 🐝

So many different designs this week for our STEM Egg Drop Challenge. The goal was to build a structure to protect an egg when dropped from height. None of the eggs had been boiled so it got messy! I was so impressed with our Home Ed Clubs. They spent a lot of time gathering natural materials and thinking about ways to cushion and protect their eggs. They used sticks to absorb the shock and parachutes to slow the egg’s fall! The eggs survived a number of drops but most ended up “getting splatted” in the end! The parents/carers also got involved and rose to the challenge! We also toasted Hot Cross buns on the fire and finished with chocolate egg hunts. That’s Spring term finished. Looking forward to returning next term to Bluebells and Froglets!

This week at Home Ed Forest Club we’ve been learning about the Life Cycle of Frogs 🐸 We even found two of the stages currently in our pond. We painted these on rocks and made a lovely habitat for our toy frogspawn, tadpoles, froglets and frogs. We also cooked chocolate cakes in our Dutch oven, carefully caught and released butterflies and played numerous fun rope games!

Spring has sprung in Foxfire wood! 🌺 On the first day of Spring I can hear woodpeckers pecking, see flowers opening and our tadpoles (which we thought had died) have started to move 😊 I think they were just waiting for a nice warm day.

This week at Home Ed Forest Clubs we’ve been Bonkers about Beetles! 🪲

We found real beetles in the woods which then inspired our clay models. We even found a beautiful gold one!

We’ve been learning survival skills this week at Home Ed Forest Club. It’s been amazing watching the children work as a team, problem solve and negotiate to get their shelters built, fires lit and toffee apples cooked. One group went all ‘Bear Grylls’ and got camouflaged using mud and moss to blend in to their surroundings and another group spent time setting up a brilliant camp to sleep in.

This week at our Home Ed sessions we’ve been discussing birds, nest building and made a giant nest. We also been making mud pancakes in the mud kitchen and edible pink/blue/purple pancakes over the fire.

We also played a messy game of Mud Splat!

I haven’t taken many photos this week in our Home Ed sessions but the children have been very busy making Spinning Tops out of hazel. They used a number of different tools and drew patterns on them that created optical illusions when spun. I was particularly impressed by the perseverance and determination all the children demonstrated in finishing their toys…even in the very heavy rain! 🌧️

We also spotted lots of wildlife this week including fox, deer and best of all…we discovered frogspawn in our pond! We can’t wait to watch them develop 🐸

At Home Ed Forest Club this week we’ve been investigating the pond to see which creatures live there in Winter. We will compare our results in a few weeks when Spring arrives. We also made boats made of only natural materials (and a little twine) to see if they could float on the pond. The children thought carefully about their designs, the size of their sales and materials. Then we tested them out with tiny clay passengers (a person, a cat and two puppies) to see if they survived the crossing!

At Home Ed Forest Club we made Wormeries using layers of sand and soil topped with dead leaves. Then we did a spot of ‘Worm Charming’ and added some worms to them. We left them in a dark shed to allow the worms to do their magic. Tomorrow we will see what has happened and discuss our findings! 🪱

This week in Forest Club we celebrated the Chinese New Year by hanging lucky red wishes on the wishing tree, eating noodles with chopsticks and playing dragon games. Happy Chinese New Year!

This week at Forest Club we've been discussing how people from the Stone Age lived. We also crushed natural materials such as chalk, charcoal and mud to create art inspired by our ancestors. Scenes (with amazing backstories) included hunting woolly mammoths, being hunted by sabre tooth tigers, mythical beasts, ancient trees and a skateboarding dinosaur! We also made campfire s'mores and played an exhausting game of grown-ups versus kids stuck in the mud! 😂

This week in Home Ed Forest Club we have been learning about Snow. The real snow arrived a couple of hours later but we still had fun making fake snow, making edible cinnamon snowflakes over the fire and learning all about 'Snowflake Bentley.' He was the first person to photograph snowflakes under the microscope to discover that they are all unique ❄

This week at Home Ed Forest Club we’ve been celebrating Winter Solstice ❄️🌞 We’ve learned about the Yuletide story of the Holly King and the Oak King and how they bring balance between seasons and light and darkness. We’ve also made our own tree faces along with backstories and made beautiful paper lanterns despite the blustery conditions! We ate mince pies, drunk spiced mulled apple juice and reflected on the individual skills/progression of each child. What a lovely way to end the year. Thanks to all the amazing parents/carers, children and volunteers who make this group an absolute joy to run!

This week at Home Ed Forest Club we have learned how to safely use a saw to create beautiful Christmas decorations made from hazel wood. We have also completed the Christmas scavenger hunt challenge and cooked eggy bread over the fire 🔥

This week at Forest Club, activities were inspired by the lovely Christmas story ‘The Night Tree.’ We found our own Night Tree and made edible decorations for the wildlife to help them through the Winter. We also drunk hot chocolate on the picnic blanket whilst we admired the decorated tree, just like in the story! We also made sure our hedgehog house was cleaned out and made cosy for any hedgehogs ready for hibernation. 🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔🦔

This week we used our imaginations to make our own mini worlds. Group members were extremely creative in making their own characters and creating their back stories. We also cooked pizza over the fire. 🍕

This week at Home Ed Forest Club we learned about Guy Fawkes and the gunpowder plot, ate edible sparklers, made a firework in a jar, created Andy Goldworthy inspired fireworks out of natural resources, played games with our friends, relaxed in the hammock and watched the magical bonfire!

Not so quiet with these two 😂 but ‘The Quiet Space’ is set up for anyone who would like time away from the group to regulate their emotions, relax in the hammock, read a book or play with sensory materials. All group members can come here when needed.

Holiday Halloween fun at Foxfire Woods 🎃 We made pinecone spiders, willow webs, climbed through giant spider webs, made wizard wands, mixed magic potions and stole seeds from the scarecrow’s field!

Fantastic team-working skills today to make these tasty, toadstool cookies. Our Home Ed group made the cookie dough and baked them in a Dutch oven over the fire. They used jam and icing sugar to look like the Fly Agaric fungi 🍄

Today at Home Ed Forest Club we searched for Autumn Treasures and used them to make beautiful Autumn Crowns and mobiles. We waxed colourful leaves to preserve them and used tools to drill holes though our conkers. We also made a fire for a much needed toasted marshmallow snack! 🔥 🍁🍂

Today in the Home Ed group we learned about the different trees in our forest, did leaf rubbings, used Hazel-wood to make Halloween decorations, baked cookies sandwiched between Hazel leaves and told collaborative spooky stories around the campfire 🔥🍁🍂

Today at Home Ed Forest Club we learned about spiders 🕷️We learned facts and discussed aspects of their anatomy and behaviour. We also completed the spider web challenge, used tools to make conker spiders and made toffee apples over the fire. 🕸️

We learned about Fascinating Fungi today in Home Ed Forest Club 🍄‍🟫 We went on a fungi hunt, examined them closely and demonstrated how a Toadstool gets its spots using a balloon! 🍄

Today in Home Ed Survival Skills we talked about the importance of fire if we were lost in the woods! We also learned about where to find King Alfred’s Cakes fungus and how to use it as tinder for the fire. We also foraged nettles to make tea and learned how to make smoke signals to signal for help! 🔥 💨

Home Ed Wilderness Survival Skills. We’re still imagining we are lost in the woods! In this session we discussed how to find water, how to filter it using items we might have on us and how to purify it. We also toasted toffee apples on the fire 🔥

Home Ed Wilderness Survival Skills. We imagined we were lost in the woods with no phone battery and it was getting dark! What were our priorities for survival in the wild?!

Today’s aim in Conservation Club was to learn to appreciate and protect all the creatures in our Ecosystem, even the less appealing ones like flies! 🪰Apparently midges are one of the only pollinators of chocolate! This fact managed to increase the popularity of flies with everyone 😁

One Bug Hotel built today complete with underground spa. Lots of mini beasts have already checked in! 🦟 🐝🐞🦗🐜🪲🦋

I think I’ve been as fascinated by this metamorphosis as the kids. We now have froglets 🐸🐸🐸

This week we learned about bats and played an Echolocation game. A special thanks to Carrie (my lovely Forest School Volunteer) who finished making the bat box in the rain, when the rest of us ran back to eat summer crumble under the shelter to escape the downpour! 🌧️

This week at Conservation Club we learned all about caterpillars and butterflies and how to help them in our gardens 🦋 🐛🦋🐛🦋🐛We made Hapa Zome butterflies, cooked Cinnamon and Sugar butterflies over the fire and worked as a team in a butterfly challenge game.

This week at Conservation Club we’ve been learning how to ID native snakes and Slow Worms. We’ve also made a Hibernaculam for our resident Slow Worms to hibernate in this winter. The hard work digging was rewarded with strawberries dipped in chocolate 😋

This week in Conservation Club we learned about trees and why it’s important to protect them. We also learned how to use trees sustainably and made Elder bead snakes and necklaces.

This week we in Conservation Club we celebrated Earth Day! 🌍 We used tools to make earth decorations with our own individual pledges written/drawn on the back to remind us of how we will help our planet. We have also played games, made shelters and eaten S’mores!

Today at Conservation Club we learned about bees and why they are important. To help protect them we made Solitary Bee homes and bee-friendly seed bombs which we threw into the meadow. We also added some Dandelions to our pancakes, but made sure to leave some for the bees! 🐝

.pro-gallery-wix-wrapper {display: block !important;} .pro-gallery-wix-wrapper .gallery-item-container {opacity: 1 !important; display: block !important;}

Upcoming Events

4 week block booking - Forest Club Wednesdays 25th/2nd /9th & 16th Jul
Wed 25 Jun
Small Dole, West Sussex
10:00am - 12:30pm. This term we'll be learning about the amazing world of bees and how to protect them, cooking over the fire, using nature to make beautiful crafts and playing lots of games.
Buy Tickets
4 week block booking - Forest Club Thursday 26th/3rd /10th & 17th Jul
Thu 26 Jun
Small Dole, West Sussex
10:00am - 12:30pm. This term we'll be learning about the amazing world of bees and how to protect them, cooking over the fire, using nature to make beautiful crafts and playing lots of games.
Buy Tickets

“We love coming to your home ed conservation club. It's given my son a confidence boost, alongside being able to learn new things in a less pressured, friendly environment.

As a child with SEN, you have been so flexible, kind and understanding, we really appreciate it!"
Katie

Our Woodland Sessions

For Children and Young People

Explore the beautiful woods, learn about wildlife and how to look after it, paddle in the streams, swing on ropes, make mud pies, forage, build dens, make friends, create using natural materials, play games and cook snacks over the campfire!

​

​Upcoming Events

Our Woodland Sessions

For Children and Young People

Upcoming Events