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
Junior Infants – drawing hogweed and meeting goats – June 2025
Getting to know common hogweed Common hogweed is a plant that is very common and beneficial for lots of pollinators. And as you can see below we found evidence of a leaf miner enjoying the benefits of hogweed. It’s like the leaf miner is drawing …
1st class June 2025 – Goats and Hogweed
Getting to know Common Hogweed This week we were noticing and exploring Common Hogweed. We smelled it. We looked closely. We asked questions. We drew it. We didn’t touch it though as its sap can irritate some people’s skin. Hogweed’s flowers are pollinator’s friends. The …
1st class – 30 May 2025 – Enquiry based learning with elder
Getting to know the elder tree We met the elder tree today. We smelled her flowers and leaves. We touched her smooth young bark and her older bumpy woody bark. We wondered. We heard stories and had a letter from the elder tree via the …
Junior Infants – 30 May 2025 – Elder affordances
Affordances of nature In Forest School, “affordances” refer to the opportunities and challenges the environment presents, influencing how individuals interact with it. These opportunities, like a fallen log or a sticks, invite actions like climbing, jumping, or creating, fostering physical skills and promoting engagement with nature. Discoveries …
Making fairy houses – 1st class – 23 May 2025
Noticing In Forest School, we take time to really notice the beauty of nature. Playing Playing hide and seek in Forest School isn’t just fun — it also helps the children develop important skills like spatial awareness, proprioception, camouflage problem-solving, patience, and cooperation, all while …
Fairy magic in the woods – Junior Infants – 23 May 2025
This week we were exploring, meeting the gorse plant and building fairy houses. Gathering resources for fairy houses First we gathered resources that might be useful for building with. ‘This could be a roof.’ ‘I could use this to make a blanket.’ ‘I’m not sure …
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 …