Forest School Homeschool
One of the most exciting trends in homeschooling is the emergence of Forest School Homeschool, it’s the best hands-on outdoor education. Forest School Homeschooling adopts the principles of Forest School, which uses an experiential approach to teaching and learning in the great outdoors, at home!
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Forest School Homeschool
Forest Schools offer your children options other than being stuck in the house.
But even if an organized Forest School is available in your area it may not be what you need you can recreate it for your own children.
Benefits of Forest School Homeschool
It is a form of educational self-discovery and exploration where the natural environment is used as a learning tool and an outdoor classroom. This educational model focuses on the development of self-direction, and problem-solving, and encourages a connection to nature.
By combining traditional classroom learning with hands-on outdoor exploration, Forest School Homeschool offers an exciting and engaging way for children to learn, grow and develop.
Tools to Get Started
This is not a to-live or die-by list. These are some ideas to help you started and to get your wheels turning about things you might already have around the house that you can repurpose into your forest school.
- Tree cookies and hand-cut blocks, sanded and painted or not
- Magnifying glasses
- Pocket-sized and book-sized field guides
- Garden burlap, for making hammocks, and sailing ships
- Pots and pans, pie plates, bread pans, scoops and flippers, and whisks, etc
- Watering cans
- Ropes of varying lengths- for hanging tarps, securing zip lines, tightrope-walking, etc
- Tarps: for hiding from the rain, or creating a cozy den
- Paintbrushes, paints, and palettes
- Drop cloth for map-making in the forest, flag-making on the rocks, and painting mighty landscapes
- Planks and stumps of varying sizes- to shift, to color, to hide behind and climb upon
Tips for Planning Forest School Activities
The main thing to getting outside is being able to observe. Children can easily observe what their elders do by observing their pattern of behavior. Walk softly and quietly throughout the wooded areas and styles so the wildlife will not be scared away.
Let your children climb, crawl, sit, and even lay around checking out the world from different views, testing how things look and feel to them.
It’s about letting go of formal instruction and letting your children explore and learn.
