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This fun forest school game is a good way of practising communications skills by encouraging children to use descriptive language, whilst also developing confidence and a range of cross-curricular skills such as team building.
You will need
- Outdoor area with a number of accessible trees
- One blindfold per pair of children
Activity
Ask children to pair up, and give each pair a blindfold.
In the pairs, the children need to decide who will go first. They should then put the blindfold on.
The non-blindfolded child in each pair should then carefully spin their partner around three times.
The child without the blindfold should choose a nearby tree and direct their partner towards it using clear instructions (e.g. 5 steps forward, a quarter of a turn left etc. This activity includes a level of trust, and partners need to ensure that their blindfolded person is safe. Making sure that they warn and guide them over uneven ground and trip hazards.
Once they have reached the chosen tree, the blindfolded child should reach out and feel the tree, describing it using as many descriptive words as possible.
Once they have finished describing the tree, the partner should lead them away from it, before removing the blindfold.
They then need to look around at the trees and guess which was the one they felt and explain why.
Learning Outcomes
Literacy – This activity encourages children to develop their vocabulary and descriptive skills
Maths – Fractions and directional instructions are key skills in this activity which can be practiced in a fun and varied way. Instructing partners to turn by a quarter turn for example, develops the skills of both the instructor and their partner.
Cross-curricular skills – As with all forest school activities, this game is great for developing a wide range of cross-curricular skills. Confidence and teamwork are major examples of these, and this change of learning environment can really improve these skills in some children who may not benefit from solely classroom based lessons.
With many thanks to Charter School, Chippenham for sharing this forest school activity idea with us.
Are you looking for more fun ideas for outdoor lessons? Visit our outdoor learning page or follow us on Pinterest for some more inspiration.