Botanic Garden and Attenborough Arboretum
Forest School taster days
Exploring nature for Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS), KS1 and KS2
Your day will be led by a Forest School trained leader. The pupils will take part in practical hands-on activities, learning new skills, exploring nature and natural materials first-hand.
Choose three activities to a make a full day:
- Shelter Building - Work in small groups to create a shelter using ropes, sheets, tarpaulins and branches. Groups can design their own shelter or make one from examples provided.
- Natural painting - Using bowls and sticks, make paint from natural materials like mud, leaves, flowers and berries. Paint a picture and make a frame using sticks. Or use a mallet to squash leaves and flowers onto cloth, to create a work of art.
- Mud - Set up a mud cafe and design your own mud cakes, shakes, pies... Try creating mud paintings, balls, faces and more!
- Music - Listen to Martin Waddell's story, 'The Happy Hedgehog' and make music of your own using the natural features of the Arboretum. Make a shaker, rattle or a clay hedgehog while working together to replicate the sound of a rainstorm.
- Mammal tracks - Follow tracks and learn about the mammals that created them. Create some prints of your own and make an animal mask to take home.
- Elves, fairies and their homes - Let your imagination run wild, as they create a little person of the forest, and then make luxurious abode for them using a range of natural materials such as mud, bark, sticks, moss and grass.
- Age groups: EYFS / KS1 / KS2
- Availability: All year
- Numbers: up to 35 (one class)
- Duration: Full day
- Lunch: An inside space will be provided if needed
- Site: Attenborough Arboretum, Carisbrooke Road
- Cost: Please visit our programme costs page