Wild Explorers

All About Our Wild Explorers Groups

Our Wild Explorer sessions are drop-off sessions aimed at school-age children (5 to 14). These might take place regularly during the school day and aimed at children who are usually educated at home, or they may take place after school or during school holidays. These sessions are currently planned to take place in Middleton Woods, Ilkley.

Wild Explorers Home-Ed 'Forest School' is a new regular forest school group, about to start each Monday morning, in term time. These sessions meet the 6 principles of Forest School, and are designed to be a long-term programme of skills progression, nature connection and community building. Booking for these sessions will be done by term, or half term, to ensure a consistent group of children and each week. Each Forest School session will be led by myself, Tammy Tawny Owl (L3 Forest School Leader and founder of The Log Circle) and at least one of our lovely Log Circle assistants and volunteers. 

More information about what to expect at a typical Wild Explorers 'Forest School' session can be found here.

Wild Explorers Holiday Sessions are planned for the future and will be bookable on an adhoc basis. These will be largely 'Forest School' in nature but due to their irregularity they will not consistently meet ALL of the principles of Forest School.

Wild Explorers After-School Club is also planned for the future.

What to Expect at a Wild Explorers Session

A range of activities will be provided for children to get involved with if they want to, although all our sessions are child-led and we encourage our Wild Explorers to 'explore' in their own way! We have a maximum of 16 children in each group to keep everyone safe, and to make sure that we can give each child lots of space and attention.

Each session will incorporate a full range of forest school experiences at every session, which may include hammocks, nature crafts, den building, songs, storytelling, games and child-led nature play! Each session will also include various swings & ropes to play and balance on, carefully planned activities aimed at developing tool skills, and opportunities to observe and explore the seasonal changes taking place in our site, week by week. We will safely have a campfire at most sessions (especially in the winter) and children will get opportunities to make fires, as well as prepare and cook their snacks. Children are invited to start and end the session together in the log circle, where we will also come together to share a warm drink and a snack. Each session will be carefully planned to progressively develop new skills, introduce new experiences and to support the needs and individual interests of the children in the group. Due to the long term nature of this group, children will get opportunities to build strong connections with each other, and with the environment around them. 

Where possible Wild Explorer sessions are often longer than those for younger children; allowing time to socialise, develop extended projects, and embed new skills.

See our booking link for up to date information on dates, times and venues for Wild Explorers sessions.