Forest School themed Spring Mid-term Camp 2025
Greetings!
I am very excited to be running Forest School themed Spring Mid-term Camps on my site in Donadea, Co. Kildare, on my own land, ‘An Choill Beag’, which is just down the road from Donadea Forest Park!!
I am Lucy Bell of Growing Wild, and I am a long-time certified forest school leader, with over 10 years of experience running Forest School Programmes for children, adolescents, and adults. I was involved in developing the new QQI Level 6 Certificate in Forest School Leadership. I am also an organic horticulturist and I run food growing & seedsaving sessions in community and school settings.
The Forest School themed Mid-term Camps will run over 2 days:
Camp dates: Thursday 20th February – Friday 21st February 2025
We will be offering time in nature, free play, woodland crafts, den building, rope work, nature crafts, mud area, make and create with tools, we also play games to increase our nature connection, these sessions are underpinned by our method which is child led- and choice based, to allow for the holistic development of the child and to facilitate getting kids back to nature, in all weathers.
Time: 10.00am to 2pm
Age: From age: 5- to 11-year-olds
Location: An Choill Beag (Littlewood), Donadea, Co. Kildare.
Cost: €70 for the 2 days.
This Mid- term camp is a Forest School – themed Camp. This will be run following the ethos of forest school, which is about choice based and child led play, it is not an activity based camp, though we will be running lots of different activities over the week, forest school allows space for the children to direct the activities that they want to do, and we will offer different crafts, skills with tools, wanders in nature among many other activities. Forest School allows children follow their own needs and interests while also connecting to nature in an informal setting. If you are looking for a product-based activity based camp, this is not the camp to attend.
We hope to see you in An Choill Beag!
Lucy & crew.
A bit about Forest School:
Lucy Bell of Growing Wild has over 15 years’ experience working with children in the outdoors. Lucy is a highly experienced Forest School leader and is a trainer with the Adult Forest School Leadership Training Programme and has run Forest School throughout Ireland for over 9 years and was a Heritage in Schools Specialist for over 10 years. Lucy is also an organic horticulturalist and works in a variety of community settings.
A bit about the facilitators:
Forest School is based around allowing children spend quality, recurring time in nature, which allows for the holistic learning and development of the child. Forest School is child-led and designed to develop the children’s relationship to themselves, each other, learning and nature in a safe way. Each child will engage with this in their own way and our aim is to support that as forest school leaders. This is not a bushcraft or activity led programme, it is directed by the needs of the children and directed by what they want to do.