In our forest school sessions, Earth have been completing the Green Tree School’s award project. Throughout the project we explored the idea of creating and mapping trails within our school woods to highlight the animals and plants which live there.

Activity 1 - Introductions

To start the project off we were sent a letter by an anonymous person asking us to investigate an environmental issue. We were also sent a package which contained items that sparked a very purposeful discussion around what this environmental issue might be and what we might be required to do. We thought of lots of places where we could investigate but decided that we would go to our very own woods at Washingwell!
 

Activity 2 - Learning about woodland animals 

After we had discussed what the environmental issues could be, we decided to focus on the animals that might live in the woods. We were divided into groups and were given a set of animal cards cut in half. We had the challenge of putting them together to find out what they were and grouping them. Some of us decided to group them by whether they were furry or not, how many legs they had and if they could fly.  We discussed the animals that might make a visit to our woods at Washingwell and discussed where we might be able to find them.
 

As a class, we wanted to really make sure we knew lots about the animals that might be in our woods and played a game. Using the cards we stuck them on our back and became the animals we had been learning about! Our partners had to ask questions such as ‘what do you look like? How do you live? What do eat?’. Using the clues, we were able to guess the animals that we had become and had lots of fun doing so. 
 

Writing animal letters 

Using our knowledge on the woodland animals that we had just previously learned about, we then wrote our own animal letters. As if we were the animals, we wrote a letter to our woodland friends to tell them more about us and we even used iPads to research some really interesting facts!

The investigation

In our first session in the woods, we walked around silently to make sure we didn’t scare any wildlife away. We walked very carefully looking all around and discussed questions which would allow us to get to know the woods. We were very excited to look for signs of wildlife and were sure we had seen some animal tracks! Everyone made a journey stick made out of leaves, feathers and pinecones. When we got back to the classroom, we discussed our journey sticks and explained why we decided to include some features on there and we thought our journey sticks really represented the woods perfectly!

We then divided ourselves into groups and made our own flags to take to the woods, we were all given a specific area to focus on. Each group chose the features that they wanted to focus on and what interested them; we had smells, sounds, trees and interesting shapes. To mark each feature, we named our flags things such as ‘the arched tree of mystery’s’ ‘wriggly rock’ and ‘sweet leaves’. We then recorded our features to make a trail record and drew pictures on the map of the woods which we had previously completed. At the end, all the groups came together and showed each other their trails, explaining why they chose the feature.

Sharing our investigation

To end the project, we shared our investigation with Mercury Class and told them all about the features we had discovered in the woods. We discussed about the wildlife that might live there and the importance in making sure the woods is looked after. We also shared our animal letters and  Wild Trail Maps that we made in our groups linking it our favourite features. 
 

Earth have really enjoyed completing the Green Tree Award Project, we have learnt all about creating and mapping trails within our woods at Washingwell and can’t wait to share our experiences with you all!