A Year of Forest School

I chose this book because my son had attended a ‘forest school’ with his class and, in typical 11-year-old style, told me virtually nothing about it. I thought this would be a way of encouraging him to talk about it and give us some ideas we could try at weekends.

Early in the book was a paragraph on ‘how to use a sheath knife’. ‘Did you use a knife at forest school???’ ‘Oh yeah.’ Images of son’s friends running round the woods brandishing knives….

The book is divided into the four seasons and gives clear details of activities to do in those seasons, such as building shelters, making a walking stick and using feather pens with blackberry ink. There are plans for a whole day of activities in each season. I particularly liked the food and drink based activities (nettle soup, baked apples) and there are some lovely games.

This book isn’t really aimed at parents but at schools, clubs and playgroups. (One of the games needed eight plus players!) I think they will find it useful for outdoors ideas and appreciate the notes on how to support shy or nervous children. However, for the non-experts using this book, pictures and diagrams would be useful .I’d never heard of a sistrum before and I had to google it to find out what one looks like.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It’s given me some ideas for (slightly toned down) outdoor activities and if I ever start my own playgroup, this will definitely be on my bookshelf!

Thanks to Net Galley and Watkins Publishing for this review copy.