Celebrating 10 years of Forest School
DSP is celebrating ten years of providing Forest School sessions to all children. As part of this celebration, the Scaip Project was formed to inspire and support more Nature Based Learning happening in schools across Ireland.
The goal of the project is for all children in Ireland to have the opportunity to lead their play and learning in nature as an integral part of their education and healthy development by providing resources and examples and training in this. Have a look at www.naturebasedlearning.ie
DSP Forest School sessions
Our sessions bring the children and the curriculum to the forest on Killiney Hill weekly for a block of time. The structure of each session allows the children to build connection: to themselves through sit spots, creative opportunities and reflection; to each other through games and teamwork; and to the world we live in through experiencing it with all their senses.
The aim is to foster resilient, independent, confident and creative learners using a flexible approach and natural resources.
The learning flows out of the sessions in so many ways. English, Geography, Science, Maths, SPHE, Music, Art, PE, Ethical Education and drama are all covered in the sessions and then the richness of the experience continues the engagement and motivation in the classroom and at home.
Have a look at the wonderful blog posts below and those by Liz McMahon with whom we collaborate to run these sessions. https://dlrcreativityintheclassroom.wordpress.com/
Forest School
Forest School Updates
Creativity with stickyweed – Junior Infants – 16th May 2025
We are noticing really interesting things. We made sticky weed crowns. We played games and climbed. We made leaf prints with clay. Someone had a special nature birthday. We made a nature birthday cake and danced around it, finishing with cleaver birthday tea.
Sticky weed fun and leaf prints – 16th May 2025 – 1st class
The journey up to base camp is full of learning and movement. We stopped off in the meadow. On the edges was lots of stickyweed (aka cleavers, goosegrass, stickybacks etc). We started by looking closely and noticing interesting things about the stickyweed plant. We noticed …
Bealtaine and the fairy tree – Junior Infants May 9th 2025
Junior Infants are learning so much about the forest through observation, curiosity and wonder. Our job as leaders is to follow that interest and support the learning that they are drawn towards. There was a lot of fairy magic in the woods this week. We …
Celebrating Bealtaine – 9th May 2025 – 1st class
The hawthorn tree or fairy bush or May tree was our focus this week as we were celebrating Bealtaine, one of Ireland’s fire festivals celebrating the start of the summer. The bluebells are also known as a fairy flower and some stories tell of the …
Dandelions – wishes and faces and more – Junior Infants – May 2nd 2025
Journey to basecamp Junior Infants always notice interesting things on the way to our basecamps. Dandelion magic Dandelions are a very generous plant for children. They can colour with them, make wishes with them, make land art faces with them, make tea with them and …
6th class – Bee-ing natural and grateful
This week was the last week before the 6th class students become assistants for the younger children. They have demonstrated leadership skills in the last few weeks, learning games to teach the younger children, noticing things in nature to show them, figuring out how to …
4th class – Session 6 – Busy Bees
We can forget or just not realise how important outdoor play is in childhood (and beyond). This page from the Forest Fridays book is here to remind us. The full book is available on https://www.dspns.ie/scaip/. This week, as always, the children had lots of ideas …
