From practitioners, for practitioners 🌿

Forest school fire activities

Lighting it, feeding it, sitting round it. Fire is the heart of most sessions and the thing children remember longest.

3 ideas, best for July first

Fire Campfire toasting sticksWhittle a green-wood toasting stick with a potato peeler, then use it the same session — marshmallows or bread twists over the embers. Tool work with an immediate, delicious purpose.the Forest School app team Fire · Bonfire Night Charcoal from the fire: woodland drawingMake your own charcoal in a biscuit tin on the embers, then draw with it — fire, chemistry and art in one session. A natural Bonfire Night pairing.the Forest School app team Fire · Winter Kelly kettle hot chocolateThe winter warmer ritual: children feed the kettle chimney with pencil-thin sticks, and the reward is a steaming cup on a cold morning. Winter sessions run on this.the Forest School app team

Running fire activities well

Fire earns its place because it is genuinely risky and genuinely rewarding, and children rise to it. A child who has been trusted with a fire steel and a ball of cotton wool is a different child by the end of the term — not because they can light a fire, but because somebody let them.

The structure matters more than the spark. A settled circle, a clear rule about how you move around it, a kettle that means something good is coming, and one adult whose only job is the fire. Get that right and the lighting itself is almost incidental.

One adult on fire, and only fire. It is not a job you do alongside the register.
Circle, walk-round rule and water bucket before the first spark. Every single time.
Fire steel before matches. It's slower, and the slowness is the point.
Write the fire risk-benefit for your actual site — ground, canopy, wind line, and what's underfoot in August.

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