This book is a wonderful resource and guide! I loved the activities and ideas listed throughout the book. They are suited to all age groups and are simple while engineering opportunities for creativity, learning, and game play.

Forest School Wild Play is such a wonderful resource! This was my first Forest School book and I can't wait to read more by Jane Worroll. The book was easy to understand and provided a lot of great information. I loved the activities from this book and can't wait to try and incorporate some of them into our programs at the library.

Thank you NetGalley and Watkins Publishing for this ARC!

This was fantastic and had lots of great ideas for encouraging forest school life. I learnt a thing or two whilst reading and look forward to putting some of the ideas into practice.

Great book, I didn’t know it was the third in a series, I will have to look the others up. It was a good forest school book aimed at children and had some good bushcraft things in there too. Well worth a read if you are into forest school.

Forest School Wild Play is a sensible and exuberant guide to outdoor fun by Jane Worroll. Released 8th June 2021 by Watkins, it's 168 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

This is a fun and healthy learning-rich guide for facilitators (and older kids)which contains tips and tutorials for engaging play activities outdoors. The chapters are grouped thematically by primal element: earth, air, fire, and water. The activities are appropriate for a wide age range and the number of suggested participants as well as safety considerations are provided by the authors along with alternatives and related activities.

Many of the activities are appropriate for all ages, from preschool kids through teenagers. Tutorials are presented with info on setting, ages, learning goals, tools and supplies, and optional alternative activities. The step by step instructions which follow are well written and specific. "Try this" tips are scattered throughout the text in highlighted text sidebars. I really liked that the authors had a mostly hands-off style of engagement, suggesting to teachers and facilitators that they provide the minimum of intervention and only then in regard to safety.

The graphics and illustrations are woodsy and really suit the style of the book. The text and layout are high contrast and easy to read with monochrome line drawn illustrations throughout. There are no photographs, but the illustrations are easy to follow and add a lot of character to the book. I didn't miss not having photographs and think the execution was very much in keeping with the outdoorsy vibe of the book.

Although it's aimed at kids, there is a quite surprising amount of bushcraft and practical survival advice contained here. There are also a lot of fun activities (making a bullroarer, simple kite, and wood whistle for example) which hide lots of practical skills.

Five stars. This is a -very- well written and presented book. It would make a superlative choice for public or school library acquisition, makers' groups, youth activity groups, and similar.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

I received an advance reader copy of this book to read in exchange for an honest review via netgalley and the publishers.

Forest School Wild Play is a fantastic resourceful book about teaching and educating children the forest school way.
Both my school and my daughters school have a forest day each term and this book has given me some great ideas for activities to do within it.
The activities are divided into four section's: Earth, Air, Fire and water. The activities themselves include and centre around nature and environment, independence building, sustainability and loving the world around us.
The only thing that put me off a little with this book was some of the writing style within it that gave off a vibe of being a form of worship which made me a little put off which is why I have rated this book 4 stars and not 5.

I am a mother who identifies as pagan but since COVID, found myself homeschooling. I have always been involved with my two boys but even more so this past year. As they plan to return to school next year, I wanted something that I can still do with them. I had no idea this was a series!

Now...I think I need them all. I love that this focuses on the elements while giving them fun activities to do that can help them to learn. This is such a great resource and I hope many of you are able to use it with your children as well.

This third book in the Forest School series, Forest School Wild Play covers all new games, activities, and folklore to encourage children in outdoor play and appreciation. This particular volume focuses on the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. Each section includes forest activities themed around that element. Overall themes include sustainability, appreciation of nature, honoring the earth, and interdependence within the web of life.

Forest School Wild Play is the first of Jane Worroll and Peter Houghton's work that I've had the privilege to read. I loved that the activities were divided into four categories making themed units easier to organize. The games were fun and the activities varied enough to engage a wide variety of ages. I also really appreciated that each activity listed the social/emotional skills they were designed to build, giving me a greater awareness of what may be happening with my students and children. All games and skill-builders are thoroughly outlined and explained.

For the most part, I enjoyed this book as we do enjoy learning in the outdoors. However, there was a level of reverence displayed in the writing that I just wasn't comfortable with. The writers seemed to elevate the earth to a level of worship that felt almost sacrilegious. It was just one of those things that I felt uncomfortable with. If you can look past that, the activities really are well thought out and appropriate, and would make a great addition to outdoor education. It was just one of those things that made me pause and felt worth noting.

*Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from the publisher. All opinions are my own.

A great guide to getting outside and playing and growing in nature, this book provides in-depth instructions for all-natural outdoor games, crafts, and other activities based on the methods used in European forest schools. Whether you’re a parent, educator, or kids group leader looking for a way to engage children outside, this book can help! Based on the climate and vegetation where you live, you may need to adapt some of the activities, but this will get you off to a good start.

As an educator who has done a placement in a Forest School Kindergarten and saw the benefits of this approach firsthand, I am thrilled to have a book with activity ideas that will benefit the children in my program. We do try to spend as much time outdoors as possible, in all weathers, because of the benefits to children’s development and health.

I loved the frame of this book being the four elements. And that the activities respect children’s capabilities, are easily adaptable to different age groups and list the benefits. They were clearly well thought out and meaningfully follow principles of Forest school.

I will be adding this book and the previous ones in the series to our library and be encouraging parents to purchase it, as it gives great ideas that anyone can incorporate. Being in and out of lockdown’s, now more than ever, this book is essential for curriculum planning.

As a mother of a son with ADHD, who benefits from outdoor time during the summer, I’ll also be using this book in my personal life!

Disclaimer: I first read it as an ARC. In exchange for an honest review, I am thankful to Watkins Publishing, Jane Worroll and NetGalley for providing me with a copy of Forest School Wild Play.
#ForestSchoolWildPlay #NetGalley

I've received this book for an honest review from netgalley #netgalley

This book has so many great ideas and was really easy to follow. I really hope that I can do 1000 hours with my children to help encourage their growth.

I enjoyed this book as an idea of activities for playing and enjoying the outdoors. My son is only 2 so many of the ideas are not recommended or safe for his age but were good ideas nonetheless. The book was very wordy in-between the different activities. I would recommend to those with elementary school aged kids.

I'll be purchasing and recommending this book to all my parent friends.
My 3.5 year old boy loves the outdoors and the forest school near me did not have any places left so this has been a wonderful introduction as to how I can introduce some of these elements myself at home in our garden and the nearby woods. We've already made the clay and enjoyed the mud painting excercises and are planning more.
I really liked how it was split out into the different elements and thought the activities and instructions were simple and informative and easy to follow. The age range and lists were very helpful.
With lockdown in the UK and possibly more in the future, this is an ideal time for parents to discover more about outside learning and play!

Love, love love this book! I am a teacher and in this day and age, so much academic rigor is forced on children and the art of play is often forgotten. I try very hard to incorporate play and outdoors into my classroom.
This is a very inspiring book with a plethora of beautiful ideas for anyone working with children.

** a HUGE thanks to NetGalley for the ARC!

This is such a wonderful and gentle resource for educating children through nature. My family is moving from the desert to a more nature inspired location, so I am very eager to participate in these activities with my daughter.

Each chapter (named for an element) provides a handful of hands on activities that can be done by both adult and child. While some of them are geared towards older children (7+), there are a handful for the younger ones. Even still, any activity outside of the age range can be modified with adult supervision and participation.

I recommend this to anyone that is wanting a gentle way to incorporate nature studies in their child's education.

Forest School Wild Play is your next go to guide for a real life enactment of "Where the Wild Things Are" Channeling your inner forest sprite that loves to splash in mud, frolic between the dense trees of the forest all the while screaming loudly and gnashing your teeth about. I personally loved this book, as a serious nature school advocate, all three of my children attended a nature school, I get excited when I see books published that encourage imaginative play in wild and uncontrolled settings. Some of the games mentioned in this would be a fabulous starting off point for kids who can get stuck or feel unsure how to play in natural settings. Mudslides? count my kids in!

One of the things I love the most about the authors attitude about forest school is how capable children are when given an opportunity to experience activities typically labeled as "too dangerous". In a society driven by safety and sterility, it's refreshing to see guidelines, and ideas that encourage messy, muddy, creative, and risky play.