Forest School Training Company kit list
This useful Forest School kit list is divided into tool-work and non-tool-work items, depending on the age, competencies and size of your group and number of practitioners.
Outdoor Hub
Forest School Training Company
Website www.forestschooltraining.co.uk
Kit ideas for Forest School
Ensure you have got emergency bag, including First Aid kit, medical details, parental consent etc. Include nurture kit for cold weather / young children (hats, gloves, spare socks, fleeces, hand wipes, rubbish disposal bags). Water for drinking and a shelter sheet plus ropes is always good.
For non-tool work at Forest School
Exploring colours, using mud and enjoying mixing:
- Containers to collect mud, leaves, berries in
- Pestle and mortar or bowl and hazel sticks for grinding into paste
- Brushes or elastic bands to make own brushes (sticks and moss/grass)
- Canvas or card for painting on
- Cotton and bashing sticks, to make get green
- Small trowels to help with the digging
Enjoying bashing:
- Small mallets
- Wooden pegs ready for bashing
- Twine or string to wind around the pegs
Games:
- Rope (ex-climbing), may include strops/carabenas
- Blindfolds or hats/scarves
General:
- String
- Trowels
- Pens
- Elastic bands
- Spare forest friends
- Small mallets
For tool work at Forest School:
- Bow Saw – peg tooth and raker tooth
- Sawing horse or wood and string to make one
- Fixed blade knife for whittling (toasting stick, forest friend)
- Mallet for bashing
- Tarp for temporary shelter
- Smaller tarps for mini dens
- Sit-upons (cut up a roll mat)
- Fire steels
- Axe (for making pegs)
As to how many tools
– Suggest to start with two bow-saws (one peg toothed and one raker tooth). Only use one bow saw at a time, unless you feel confident with assisting staff and their competence with tools. Wouldn’t have more than two work stations.
– Suggest two fixed blade knives. No more than the number of competent staff and the space for working safely.
January 2010.