Yeeha! Forest Pre-School Activities

Forest school pivots on the focus on the elements: Earth, Wind, Fire and Water and at Yeeha! we place your child as the central element. 

Children’s understanding, respect, mindful management and sustainable use of our natural resources will become increasingly definitive. We’ve ignored this but I’m sure - they won’t!

Yeeha! ensures the safeguarding, health, safety and wellbeing of all children above all else before we apply educational and experiential themes that progress development and a love of learning. 

Children will be well-protected by risk assessments, First Aid scaffolding and assessment of individual children’s personal, social and emotional development, well-being,  as well as interests and abilities appraised before delivery of all activities.

The activities at Forest School are child-lead with a stable foundation based in the EYFS, with  progress at the heart of intention to bring about well-being and self-worth; fostering the very best outcomes for the short, mid and long term.

We use our tailored Curriculum as a spring-board to suggest areas of focus where children will explore and further interests, fascinations, skill-development and critical thinking to connect-with and build a life long love of learning. 

Embedded learning through effective teaching via bespoke, tailored and maticulously-planned activities match and reflect children’s baselines, next steps and ambitions.

All Yeeha! activities support skill acquisition which matches expected development for age and stage and scaffolds children’s Next Steps - ensuring focus and attention to children’s engagement with learning and their own progressing pride in growth of their own abilities. 

Forest School provides a more practical, as well as emotionally and physically more beneficial environment to enable children’s progress. It supports the essential elements of what makes long-term outcomes positive:

  • Well-being

  • Independence

  • Self-worth

  • Practical skills promoted by hands-on experience  

  • Personal, social and emotional development

  • Speech and language development

  • STEM

  • Socialisation

  • Working as and individual and the ability to be useful/cooperative in a team

  • Security

  • Reduction of stress by close connection with nature

  • Perspective and responsibility that comes with awareness and reference to ecology and ecosystems 

  • Immunity benefits of contact with microorganisms in the soil

  • Bone, muscle and emotional strength achieved through exposure to vitamin D

  • Physical and emotional health through movement

  • Resilience

    Creativity inspired by the colours, patterns and sequences that nature displays

All the above are achieved via planned activities tailored to individual children and differentiated for all, irrespective of age, stage, ability and or interest:

  • Pond dipping

  • Tree climbing

  • Wild foraging

  • Bug, wild flower, wild herb, fungus and plant hunts

  • Shelter building

  • Colour hunts 

  • Sound games

  • Orienteering

  • Water harvesting

  • Den building

  • Stream walking

  • Growing flowers, fruits, herbs and vegetables

  • Dam building

  • Flower pressing

  • Potion making

  • Basic bush craft

  • Rope making

  • Mud sculpting and painting

  • Clay sculpting

  • Wood whittling

  • Wild music making

  • Tree ID walks

  • Bird ID walks

  • Water divining

  • Seed gathering

  • Wild ink painting and printing

  • Creating natural miniature worlds

  • Bug habitats 

  • Making tree swings

  • Nest building

  • Weaving

The list is almost unlimited but with the under 5’s we are very careful to keep the fire element to a strictly limited part of the curriculum which is exclusively adult-only lead. 

The means that in safe situations and logged-off areas, where impact on the ecology, forest floor and where children’s safety is paramount - we will (with permissions and daily risk assessments), make controlled, contained small fires for cooking and making birch tea. 

Children at 5 years old will be supported in using safe, specially designed and age appropriate equipment to learn how to light a fire. No matches, accelerants or lighters are ever used!

All children however will be taught the vital principals and importance of fire building for cooking, keeping warm, for making areas light, for conveying position and for different durations of ignition. Short-lasting and long-lasting as well as fires that can be transported for situations where people are for whatever reason on the go.

Bush craft is an element that is brought into play, dependent on the advanced ages of children who show maturity in physical, emotional and self-regulation ability so that tool use is safe.

However all children will learn through skilled and trained adults, how to use tools and in some circumstances, (where risk assessments approve) can use specific tools like hand drills and sharpened natural resources -under close 1:1 supervision only.

Children benefitting from these opportunities will thrive as a result of all these experiences and corresponding acquisition of skills - more than we realise. 

By the time they are your age, the global challenges and well-being may only be mitigated using these essential and primeval skills. 

Their careers and social focus will likely pivot around sustainability, water conservation, air quality and self-regulation. Executive function and the ability to be tolerant, communicative, kind and sharing skills will win out.

Regular careers we were channelled towards will for the most-part likely be botted or A.I.’d out. 

The future will require this generation to be kind, creative, curious and courageous. They will need advanced practical and social skills. 

Their self-regulation and executive function will determine their positive outcomes in the brave new world we have passed down to them for them to sort out!

We hope that all our focus as practitioners and parents will diverge so that we all progress skills promoting well-being in the here and now as well as hope and positivity for the future of our children’s happiness, sustainability and positive contribution. People will be drawn toYeeha! children out of love, respect, admiration and a resulting will to assist them in their goals.

You don’t need to be the smartest person in the room but it sure does help if you’re well-liked and have skills to swap. Let’s make our Yeeha! children the compassionate and well-loved champions of the future!