2 weeks ago
Posted on 17th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Beltane Celebrations

In our woodland Wednesday session last week the fairies sent a letter about a traditional celebration that they have at this time each year called Beltane. We might know this as May Day. They told us about some of the things that they do to celebrate and we recreated them for our own celebration! We lit a fire and toasted soda bread on it drizzled with honey (in the hope that we will have a sweet Summer, the fairies left us a loaf of soda bread and some honey), we made green man masks, we also made crowns. Some of us checked the wild flowers we had planted and we were pleased to see that they have started to grow well! We took more willow cuttings and put them in a bucket to see if they will grow roots.

The fairies had also left us some natural paintbrushes made from sticks and different woodland items and we tried to make our own natural paints using the charcoals from a previous fire, grass, dandelions and mud. We may have mixed too much water with the paint though!

2 weeks ago
Posted on 17th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Andy Goldsworthy inspired artwork

Look at our fantastic masterpieces. We explored some of Andy Goldsworthy’s artwork and talked about the materials and shapes he used before heading into the woodland to create our own Goldsworthy inspired masterpieces. Some of us then used the voice recorders to narrate our work.

3 weeks ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

The Enormous Turnip talk for writing unit

This term we have been learning the Enormous Turnip traditional tale and then we have innovated and written our own version of a vegetable story with a repeated phrase. We were sent some seeds in a special gardening bag from the fairies, we looked at some books and talked about traditional tales; sorting the books. After we had planted lots of seeds, including some turnip seeds we were really shocked to find one turnip seed had grown much bigger than the rest! We explored the text by role playing using props and using the small world items to retell the story. We also read lots of different versions of the traditional tale.

3 weeks ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Earth Day 2026

It was world Earth Day on April 22nd, a day when we are all encouraged to think about our impact on the earth. We read a book called Our planet, a simple story about how we can help look after our Earth. Also the fairies set us some challenges:

E – to explore the planet Earth (we used magnifying glasses and the microscope to explore our Forest Schools site)

A – Art ( we were encouraged to create some art using items in forest schools)

R – Recycle – the fairies left us lots of bags of rubbish and we were encouraged to find ways of reusing it. We used the nets from our morning fruit and some yoghurt pots for some planting.

T – thank you – we created leaves on paper and wrote thank you messages for things on this earth we were thankful for.

H – help (the fairies left us some wild flower seeds which we planted to help the creatures that live in forest schools and some herbs which we took cuttings from)

3 weeks ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

A letter from Fairy Blossom Brightwing

Dear Forest School Friends,

I need your help! Last night, a wild twisty wind blew my spring potion right out of my hands, and it spilled into the mud.

Without a new potion, the flowers in my forest might stay closed, the leaves may stay curled, and the whole forest will just stay sleepy for far too long! Has Spring started in your forest? How do you know?

Please could you help me by making a brand-new spring potion?

You can use:
✨ fallen petals
✨ leaves
✨ rainwater
✨ sticks
✨ mud
✨ anything the forest offers you (as long as it’s already on the ground).
Mix them together gently — forest magic works best when made with kindness. When your potion is ready, label it and leave it in a special spot so I can collect it at sunset. I’ve left everything you need in the special bag.
Thank you, brave potion makers.
I believe in you.
With sparkles and sunshine,
Blossom Brightwing
Spring Fairy

We had a wonderful morning making spring potions for Blossom Brightwing. We had been left a letter in the woodland so we used the ‘signs of spring’ clues to locate it. Following this, we worked with our partners to create sparkly potions from fallen treasures.
In the videos you might be able to hear us waking the ingredients with the words, “Spring is here!”

3 weeks ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Woodland Wednesday – creating fairy gardens

Our morning began with an invitation to predict what might lie behind this small door. We shared our ideas firstly through drawing and then we talked about them together.
We were surprised to then find that our Woodland Wednesday bag had been filled by the forest fairies. They had left a letter thanking us for the wonderful potions we made a couple of weeks ago to wake up the forest. The fairies also told us that they would like to visit our woodland but to be able to do this, they needed somewhere safe to stay within it. Using the instruction manual left by Blossom Brightwing, we worked hard to create some safe fairy homes. Have a look at our creative ideas- some homes had ponds, doors, paths, archways and much more.

3 weeks ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

Reading around the world

The May challenge in our “year of the reader” calendar is to “read around the world”. We have created a read around the world basket of books in our class book nook and the May book in our book calendar was a book called: A Gift for Amma, a story about a young girl who is looking in an Indian market for a gift. We really enjoyed the colourful illustrations in this book!

3 weeks ago
Posted on 10th May 2026 by Emma Noden

David Attenborough’s 100 birthday celebrations

We had a wonderful day celebrating the 100th birthday of Sir David Attenborough. We could not believe what 100 looked like when shown on ten 10-frames!

We started the morning looking at a giant map of the world’s continents and talking about how David Attenborough has visited all 7 of them. We talked about some of the animals he has been fortunate to work so closely with and looked at where these were on the map of the world.

In our woodland, we made seed bombs with Shropshire Wildlife Trust. We were also lucky to have students from Thomas Adam’s helping us too. I wonder where you will plant your seed bomb?

We shared a thought provoking story called Love Our Earth. We talked about what we love about our world and what we can do to protect it. We sorted pictures of different everyday actions into those that would make Earth happy and those that would make it sad. Each of us then used drawing, and added colour with watercolours, to show what we love about our planet.

1 month ago
Posted on 01st May 2026 by Laura Bessant

Year of Reading – April – Reading outside!

2026 is the National Year of Reading. At Hodnet School, we have created a Year of Reading moment for each month and April have children the opportunity to read outside. The weather has been glorious and perfect for enjoying a book in the beautiful grounds of our school!