9 Forest School Activity Ideas for Early Years Education
Forest School-style activities are a wonderful way to help young children learn through outdoor play, hands-on experiences and exploration. From building with sticks and investigating minibeasts to splashing in muddy puddles, there are countless ways to make the most of the natural environment.
For early years settings, Forest School-style activities don’t need to involve lots of planning or expensive equipment. Simple resources and opportunities to explore can encourage children to develop their creativity, confidence, communication and understanding of the world around them.
If you’re looking for inspiration, here are some Forest School-inspired activities to try with young children, with plenty of flexibility for them to follow their own interests.
Nature Treasure Baskets
Encourage children to collect interesting natural objects during their time outdoors. Fallen leaves, pine cones, sticks, feathers and acorns can all provide inspiration for exploration and play.
All you need is a basket or bucket for collecting items, and then give the children time to find and examine their discoveries. They might then sort objects they find by colour or size, compare different textures, arrange them into patterns, or simply enjoy discovering something new.
Counting each of the items they find can be a lovely way of introducing early mathematical concepts, while encouraging observation and curiosity. Children can also practise describing what they find, helping to develop their vocabulary and communication skills.
Mud Kitchen Play
Mud kitchens are a popular addition to Forest School environments, offering endless opportunities for imaginative and sensory play. With a few old pots, pans and spoons, children can mix mud and water, create pretend recipes or experiment with different consistencies.
You could provide jugs, bowls and sieves to encourage pouring, scooping and transferring materials. Children might become fascinated by how dry soil changes when water is added or discover what happens when they mix mud with leaves and grass.
These simple experiences support fine motor development, early scientific thinking and imaginative play. Best of all, children can return to the same resources again and again, finding new ways to use them.
Discovering Minibeasts
Gardens, woodland areas and grassy spaces are full of opportunities to discover small creatures. Children might spot ants moving across a path, find a worm in damp soil or notice a spider’s web between branches.
Magnifying glasses and bug viewers can help them look more closely at their discoveries. Encourage children to share what they notice, compare how different creatures move or wonder where they might live.
Simply taking the time to observe wildlife can encourage children to develop an interest in the natural world and learn to treat living things with care. Avoid unnecessary handling and return disturbed materials and creatures gently to their original places.
Creating Nature Art
Natural materials offer plenty of inspiration for creative outdoor play. Children can use fallen leaves, sticks, stones and tree seeds to arrange patterns, make pictures or build temporary sculptures on the ground. You could also provide paper and chunky crayons for rubbings from suitable textured surfaces, such as tree bark.
Rather than demonstrating a finished design for children to copy, allow them to experiment with their own ideas. Nature art encourages creativity, helps develop fine motor skills and gives children opportunities to explore shapes, colours and textures. It is important to remember to use fallen materials where possible and avoid picking protected plants or disturbing habitats.
Water Exploration
Water play can be just as engaging outdoors as it is indoors. Provide a selection of jugs, bowls, funnels and containers, then let children explore filling, emptying, pouring and transferring water between vessels.
Puddles can offer additional opportunities for discovery. Children might notice reflections, investigate how water moves across different surfaces or compare muddy water with clear water.
These experiences introduce early scientific concepts, including volume, capacity and cause and effect. They also encourage coordination and concentration as children experiment with different objects and techniques.
Supervise water play closely and ensure containers and water sources are suitable for the children's ages and abilities.
Exploring Woodland Movement Trails
Outdoor environments provide natural opportunities for children to develop balance, coordination and physical confidence. A woodland area or garden might offer small slopes to walk up, logs to step over, roots to navigate around and surfaces to balance on.
Rather than creating a rigid obstacle course, allow children to explore the available space and decide how they want to move through it. Some may enjoy trying new challenges, while others prefer to watch before having a go.
You can introduce additional resources, such as hoops or stepping stones, if they suit your setting. The important thing is to provide manageable challenges that help children develop their physical skills at their own pace.
Always assess the environment carefully, provide appropriate supervision and ensure any climbing or balancing opportunities are suitable for the children involved.
Exploring Natural Textures
The outdoors is full of different textures for children to discover. They might compare rough tree bark with smooth stones, feel the difference between dry and damp leaves or explore how moss feels beneath their fingers.
You could provide magnifying glasses to help children examine small details or offer paper and crayons for texture rubbings. Children might also enjoy describing their discoveries using words such as rough, smooth, bumpy, soft and crunchy.
These experiences encourage sensory exploration, language development and observation. They can also help children become more aware of the details in their surroundings.
Check natural materials before use, avoid potentially harmful plants and respect children's individual sensory preferences.
Listening to Nature
Sometimes, one of the simplest Forest School-inspired activities is to stop and listen. Find a comfortable spot outdoors and encourage children to notice the sounds around them.
They might hear birds calling, leaves rustling, wind moving through branches or their own footsteps on gravel. Children can try copying the sounds they hear, making rhythms with suitable objects or noticing how the environment sounds different in another location.
This activity can support listening skills, communication and early musical development. It also offers a quieter experience for children who enjoy observing their surroundings without taking part in more energetic play.
There is no need to expect everyone to sit still or identify every sound. Simply making space to listen can be a valuable outdoor experience.
Seasonal Nature Discoveries
Returning to the same outdoor space throughout the year gives children opportunities to notice how nature changes with the seasons.
In autumn, they might explore fallen leaves, acorns and conkers. During winter, they could look for frost, notice bare branches or observe how the ground changes after rainfall. Spring brings new buds, shoots and birdsong, while summer offers opportunities to discover flowers, insects and shady spots beneath trees.
Encourage children to share what they notice and revisit familiar places to see what has changed. You could use photographs or children's drawings to record their observations over time.
These experiences help children develop an understanding of the natural world and begin to recognise seasonal patterns through first-hand exploration.
Supporting Learning Through Forest School Activities
Forest School-style activities can support many areas of early years development. The key is to offer children a variety of experiences without making every activity too structured. Whether they're building dens, discovering minibeasts or experimenting in a mud kitchen, children can develop valuable skills while enjoying the freedom and variety of outdoor learning.
At Discovery Nursery Exeter, we support this outdoor learning by providing suitable resources, observing children's interests and offering encouragement when needed. Open-ended activities allow children of different ages and abilities to participate in ways that suit them, without the pressure to achieve a particular result. From experimenting with sound in our sound garden, to imaginative play in the Creative Cove, to hands-on, messy fun in our large mud kitchen, every space invites children to be active, expressive, and adventurous in their learning through forest school-style activities.