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 
Read more
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 
Read more
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 
Read more
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 
Read more
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 
Read more
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 
Read more
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.
Read more
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 
Read more
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 
Read more
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 
Read more
DSP News INFO
All the latest school news, updates and more.
SEE ALL

Don’t miss news @ DSP!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.