With 20+ years of teaching experience across Europe, I bring extensive expertise as a Reception Teacher and Forest School Practitioner. Passionate about play-based learning and the outdoors, I've developed a dynamic environment that fosters children's exploration and connection with nature. Here you'll find some of my outstanding resources to support your own teaching and learning!
With 20+ years of teaching experience across Europe, I bring extensive expertise as a Reception Teacher and Forest School Practitioner. Passionate about play-based learning and the outdoors, I've developed a dynamic environment that fosters children's exploration and connection with nature. Here you'll find some of my outstanding resources to support your own teaching and learning!
6 Lesson Plans/Activities including Art with Natural Resources, Bug Hunt, Building a Bug Hotel, An Introduction to Fire, Cooking on an Open Fire, and Small World Story Making with Faries (Fairy World). Also included is a Risk Assessment for having a fire and an Introduction to Forest School.
This is an ideal introduction to get you on your way to confidently leading a group of children outside.
The activities are designed for children from Reception up to Year 2 but they can easily be adapted for Nursery and older year groups.
Please be aware, these are designed for teachers and are there to be interpreted. True Forest School does not follow lesson plans. These resources are designed to give ideas and act as a back up for the practitioner to deliver a catalyst and prompts for learning whilst being prepared to follow the children in their learning journey! Forest School should be led by the children.
This lesson plan/ activity will guide you through having a fire with your children. It is intended for children aged 4-8 but can easily be extended for slightly elder children.
The activity follows the Forest School approach to fire making and is an ideal means to introduce fire to children. the fire making is in a Kelly Kettle (Storm Kettle) and the plan guides you through the process of getting the children involved (gathering fuel) in order to boil water for their own hot chocolate! I have found this to be one of the most enjoyable sessions taught outdoors but I recommend it only be carried out when the practitioner has complete confidence in the behaviour of the chidlren. This suits nicely towards the end of a series of Forest School sessions and feeds beautifully into cooking on an open fire, which should follow the following week as a means of extending and imbedding the learning.
An introduction to gardening through a forest school ethos. This lesson plan contains games (warm up activities) to promote language, literacy and confidence. It contains challenges to promote resilience and confidence and an activity to develop an awareness and respect of/for nature. The lesson/activity is planned for around 2 hours.
This lesson plan will guide you with your group of KS1 children in your outdoor area. The plan includes games (to develop confidence, team bonding and language - great for EAL children) and an activity which encourages children to explore and discover their natural environment while developing their skills in design and creativity. This activity fosters resilience, cooperation, imagination and problem solving skills
Complete your characteristics of effective learning easily with these ready-made statements which have been differentiated for the low, medium and high attaining child. Simply copy and paste the statements which most resemble the child in question and edit accordingly.
These statements will also prompt you with ideas for completing your more ‘personal’ report.
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A 4-page leaflet comprising a bank of activities for teachers, support staff, childminders and parents to engage with their child to help their learning. The activities all involve using playdough to help the child develop in the key areas of learning such as Speaking & Listening, Mathematics, Personal, Social and Emotional Development etc. The leaflet is extremely useful for parents of children in EYFS and Year 1. The leaflet also serves to assist planning in the classroom and can be particularly useful for teaching assistants when leading intervention groups.
This lesson plan/ activity will guide you through cooking on an open fire with your children. It is intended for children aged 4-10 but can easily be extended for slightly elder children.
The activity follows the Forest School approach to fire making.
The plan guides you through the process of getting the children involved (gathering fuel) and having them prepare and cook the food (Camp Fire Pizza!). I recommend this session be carried out when the practitioner has complete confidence in the behaviour of the children. This suits nicely towards the end of a series of Forest School sessions.
A complete lesson plan for to develop creative story writing through small world play outside.
This lesson plan will guide you to setting up your environment in a way that will inspire the children and develop their imagination.
This lesson plan is for an approximate 2 hour session but has the possibility to be extended to a second session. Ideas for extension are included.
This lesson plan fosters creativity, independence, confidence building and autonomy and is excellent for developing friendships and settling children in at the beginning of term.
Fairy World is an exciting and magical lesson for all the children and adults and the introduction of the dragon at the end just makes everyone want more!
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This resource will enable you to take your children on an effective bug hunt in the garden of your setting. This resource will enable you to explore four different avenues to bug hunting while teaching children about habitats, names of insects/minibeasts, management of personal safety as well as fostering the development of confidence, independence, team work and communication and language.
Everything you need to create your own bug hotel!
This lesson plan clearly presents how to easily build your own bug hotel while teaching children the importance of garden wildlife.
The Bug Hotel lesson plan remains within the Forest School ethos and focuses on the social and emotional aspects of learning.
The Bug Hotel lesson plan can be adapted to suit a Maths, Science or Forest School lesson.
The Bug Hotel lesson plan is recommended for children in Nursery, Reception and Key Stage 1.
This complete intervention pack includes activities for finger gym, numeracy, and writing. It is designed for support staff (LSAs and TAs) to grab and deliver targeted support without the stress of them having to plan it. It is also great for NQTs or new to Early Years teachers! This complete pack is organized in such a way to allow the person delivering the interventions to list the children involved and annotate notes to support further development including the children’s next steps.
These activities are designed for children in Nursery, Reception and Year 1.
An observation sheet especially tailored to reading. With this sheet, you can observe the child during an adult led guided reading session or during independent child-led reading. The sheets contain an extensive range of prompts to guide the observer which makes observing quick and easy!
Back to School! This resources will suggest ideas for resources in curriculum areas around your classroom. With a focus on continuous provision, this resources will tell you what should be available for the children in areas such as the reading area, creative area, sensory area etc. Aimed especially to support NQTs and new to reception teachers, this resource will save you heaps of time planning what resources are needed where.
FREE: An on-entry assessment for numeracy
FREE: An ‘All About Me’ booklet to send home to your parents for the children to complete and return.
Back to School!
A sheet to record your assessment of the children in phonics/literacy. Print this sheet twice (there are enough rows for 15 names) and use it for on-entry, term 2 and term 3 assessment. Simply fill in beside each child's name their results for the number of phonemes, graphemes tricky words and so forth that the child knows. Each term's entry is on the same page to allow for progression to be seen easily.
Included in this bundle is:
A long Observation Proforma with key prompts to make observing simple.
A Reading Observation Proforma with key prompts to make observing reading simple.
Numeracy Assessment Grid for recording on-entry baseline and termly progress in Numeracy
Phonics/Literacy Assessment grid for recording on-entry baseline and termly progress in phonics
A shape assessment grid for recording children's knowledge of simple 2d shapes.
A lesson observation sheet for EYFS (Nursery and Reception). I have called this a Learning Story as it allows the observer to write down exactly what is happening with a view of recording the learning. There is an extensive bank of prompts on the sheet to make observing easy for the assistant (LAS or TA) as well as the teacher. The prompts include "Is the child interested?", "Does the child take turns?", "Does the child express needs and feelings in an appropriate way?" etc. This helps to guide the observer to spot achievements and challenges for the child. On the reverse of the sheet, the Characteristics of Effective Learning prompts are listed in a clear easy to read table for easy observing.
A sheet to record your assessment of the children in 2d shape recognition. Print this sheet twice (there are enough rows for 15 names) and simply fill in beside each child's name their results for recognition of each shape which is clearly shown.
A sheet to record your assessment of the children in numeracy. Print this sheet twice (there are enough rows for 15 names) and use it for on-entry, term 2 and term 3 assessment. Simply fill in beside each child's name their results for numeral recognition, ability to count objects, count irregular objects and so forth. Each term's entry is on the same page to allow for progression to be seen easily.
A set of Ten-Frames including numerals to 10 to use in maths interventions. Suggested activities are included to work with children in the Reception class (EYFS).
These Ten-Frames and numerals should be printed and laminated and can be used with counters or playdough.
Ten-Frames are a fantastic way for children to understad the concept of number and quantity using concrete objects linked with numerical representation.
