A little preparation can go a long way in helping your students get the most out of their forest visit. By introducing them to what they might see, hear and experience, you can spark curiosity and help them feel ready to explore.
To support this, we’ve created a range of free downloadable resources to use in the classroom before your visit. These are designed to help you prepare your pupils and build excitement ahead of the day.
Connecting your classroom learning to your visit also helps turn the forest into an extension of the classroom, making learning more meaningful, relevant and memorable rather than a one-off experience.
Resources to help your students think about the forest environment
Watch our interactive 'welcome to the forest' video to discover what goes on in the forest and how Forestry England looks after it. It will help your students know what to expect from their forest visit and what to look out for while they are there.
Use our forest cycle presentation to tell the story from seed, to tree, to objects made of wood - an incredible renewable resource!
Use our forest through the seasons resource to think about how the forest changes throughout the year and what colours you will see when you visit.
Our forest senses resource encourages students to take a moment to explore their senses in the school grounds and think about what they might see, smell and hear in the forest.
Resources to help your students prepare with the logistics of their trip
Encourage students to think about what they need to take with them with different activity ideas for EYFS/KS1 and KS2
Discuss what you will all need to do to keep everyone safe by writing a risk assessment with our staying safe in the forest resource.
The forest is an incredible environment and we need to help look after it. Ask your students to create their own forest code to ensure they protect the forest while they are there.
Topic related resources
Forests can help to bring any topic learned about in the classroom to life. Be it using maths to calculate the height or age of a tree or using the forest as inspiration for poems and stories with our English lesson plan. All of our lesson plans for subject related forest activities include pre-visit activities, which lead on to the content for the forest. You can browse the resources here.
We also have a resource which will bring scientific enquiries to life. Challenge your pupils to create exciting experiments to explore what a forest looks and feels like. They will do some research before making predictions, planning and practice their experiments at school before carrying them out in the forest.
Forests are incredible places, and they are so important for us all, and for the wildlife that calls the forest home. We hope that by spending time getting to know your local forest, your students will feel welcome and connected to the forest environment.
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