Today we attended a wild child session held in South Killingholme for Izzy. We recently deregistered Izzy from school due to bullying and unmet needs leading to Izzy’s behaviour escalating and her mental health suffering..
While home educating Eva we found forest school was a great way to learn new skills and socialise is a relaxed environment and I thought Izzy would really enjoy it especially as she loves nature and wildlife so much and our first session has proved it was a great choice.
Wild child
Wild child sessions are run by Emma who is lovely and really welcoming. Each session is £10, there’s hot chocolate, biscuits and crumpets for the adults and children attending and plenty of activities. Emma explained some of the activities they do and that they have a child led approach so children can decide what they want to do. Being Izzy’s first session she mostly spent the time exploring and getting herself used to the other children.
Everyone was really welcoming and the atmosphere was rather relaxed. Surprisingly I didn’t feel as anxious as I normally would, I quite enjoyed sitting around the fire, drinking hot chocolate, having a chat and encouraging Izzy to explore and try out some activities and next time I’ll definitely take my crochet hook with me!
There are lots of activities such as bushcrafting, den building, decorating bird boxes, observing the wildlife and so much more. There are so many skills the children can learn naturally through play and the structured activities.
Izzy decided to make a den to begin with (I did forget to take a photo) and she worked with several other children creating a small den, chatting away as they did so. It was nice to see her working out how to make the den stable.
Next Izzy decided she would like to decorate a bird box which she spent some time on, colouring a sky and flowers, several other children decided to join in and decorate their own bird boxes too. I could hear Izzy quite happily chatted away sharing facts about animals and insects with the other children.
They have a play area for the children and Izzy kept going back to the rope net, she’s previously been a bit anxious when she’s climbed on rope nets but today she spent a lot of time climbing and just sitting in the net quite happily.
It was so nice to see Izzy slowly relax and enjoy herself. She was quite sad and tearful when it was time to leave as she really wanted to stay so we will definitely be going to more sessions. Izzy is looking forward to meeting the German shepherd therapy dog that sometimes attends the sessions and wants to learn how to whittle next time too.
I know Izzy will struggle with a lot of the typical home ed groups/meet ups but wild child feels perfect for her and I’m so glad we discovered wild child sessions!
