Our Group Activities

Forest School is an outside based learning programme which teaches personal, social and technical skills, building a child's self-esteem and independence through exploration and through challenging and stimulating planned activities. Children learn to notice and appreciate their natural environment, and learn about caring for the plants and mini-beasts with which we share our outdoor space. 

We have weekly drama sessions with Mrs Lisa leading the children in a story, adventure or acting out a scenario. There are lots of ideas and input from the children themselves, which encourages imagination and self-expression, as well as developing speaking and listening skills and building confidence and the ability to work as a team. The sessions are full of movement and are always fun!

Our weekly cooking sessions give the children hands-on practical experience of chopping, grating, sieving, squeezing, measuring, mixing, rolling and making many different dishes, many of them savoury. We use lots of fruit and vegetables, follow a pictorial recipe from raw ingredients to finished dishes - and eat them with our friends at school. Recipes tie in with cultural and seasonal celebrations, and cooking is part of our healthy eating agenda. Any allergies are always taken into account. 

Music sessions on Thursdays are always lively! We sing familiar songs, put actions to songs, act out songs and rhymes, move to a wide variety of music, use props such as colourful ribbons, puppets, chiffon scarves or the parachute. We make up new songs, and play lots of multi-cultural percussion instruments. Music is also present in the classroom on a daily basis, with free access to instruments and to singing and dancing.

Picasso said "Every child is an artist" and Maria Montessori believed "First the education of the senses, then the education of the intellect". We nurture and develop each child's creative side. There is free access to paint, clay, glue, collage, papier mache, junk modelling, fabrics, marbling and many other resources to use with imagination and self-expression. In Miss Fani's regular "Fantastic Art" sessions, the children explore freely through their senses, and the emphasis is on the process not the product. They are playful sensory experiences - in one session, the children took off their shoes, walked through honey, described the feeling and created an amazing piece of natural collage using grasses, herbs, flowers and twigs! 

We love to move our bodies and develop our physical skills. One afternoon session every week focuses specifically on stretching, running, jumping, marching, crawling, balancing, experimenting with movement, ball skills, parachute games, and many other fun activities! We learn about our bodies, learn to stay safe and follow directions, and love feeling fit and healthy!