Forest School Handbook

Forest School Handbook is lively collection of activities, crafts, bushcraft skills and nature-based play which will inspire kids to thrive outside. Whether just popping out for a walk, going camping or exploring in the woods, this handy-sized book will be your essential guide for connecting with the natural world. Packed with ideas and activities for children of all ages, there are bushcraft basics, survival skills, nature crafts and ideas for both energising and peaceful outdoor play. Encouraging controlled risk taking, boosting social skills, wellbeing and a healthy resilience, this is the ultimate way to avoid battles over screen time and classroom-induced fatigue. Build a shelter from what you find around you, design a natural collage, tie useful knots, get to know a tree, light a fire, filter dirty water, make charcoal, go on a night walk, make a bug hotel, create a mini village, whittle a stick and much more. AUTHORS: Naomi Walmsley and Dan Westall run Outback2Basics (www.outback2basics.co.uk) from their patch of woodland in Shropshire, UK. Specialising in bushcraft and Stone Age skills, they provide unique experiences for schoolchildren and teachers to connect to nature. Dan has been a bushcraft teacher for many years and has also acted as a medic and survival consultant on various TV shows. Naomi is a qualified bushcraft instructor and Forest School Leader and believes that every child should be able to safely light a fire and have at least ten uses for a stick by the age of ten. She has also written about bushcraft and parenting for many magazines, including Bushcraft & Survival Skills, Living Woods and Juno. Together, they undertook a five-month Stone Age immersion experience in the US, living in the wilderness without any modern equipment, profoundly influencing their lives and teaching.