Our Week in the Forest...
This week in the forest we have finally seen the start of winter! With temperatures dipping below freezing on some mornings we were treated to some wonderful frosts, icy puddles, layers of mist and even a light dusting of snow! As the children walked outside and saw that there was snow on the fields, they were so excited. They ran into the snow, loving the sound as it crunched under their boots and quickly began trying to make snowballs. Educators were the obvious target as a barrage of snowballs rained down on us! Whilst we continued our walk the children noticed that many of the leaves in the bushes were frozen solid and covered in ice. Some children stopped to study them closely and held them until the ice had frozen off them. By the time we had all arrived at basecamp, they all realised that it had warmed up enough that the snow was melting away!
The children enjoyed lots of adventures this week both on their way to base camp and around the common. Whilst on one adventure, the children spotted how some drops of rain were collecting on leaves and falling off again. They started trying to collect the raindrops, counting them as they went. It was wonderful to see such fun spontaneous maths occurring with some of our youngest children. They also noticed lots more rubbish on the common this week and they were persistently asking to go on special “rubbish adventures” with Tom. As they went off in search of rubbish they talked about the benefits of clearing the rubbish for all the animals that live on the common. The children discussed this at length and were so happy when they came back to camp exclaiming how they had saved the animals!
We have also had a continuing quest this week as the children have been digging for treasure chests and the ever-elusive golden underpants. They worked in teams to uncover large rocks and bricks that became treasure chests and jewels but the golden underpants’ whereabouts remained a mystery. With treasure safely stowed in the superhero headquarters, lots of the children got involved in some wonderful superhero role-play. They got together to be a huge superhero family and decided to have a superhero party. For the party, they prepared the most magnificent cake with every superhero joining in to help build it. Some collected water, others dug up some soil, they then took turns to mix it all together. To make their cake super awesome they then collected different types of leaves – cabbage leaves from the garden and ivy from the kitchen and they added this to the mix until the mixture was set like a cake. Finishing touches included sticks for the candles and more cabbage leaves for decorations. The superheroes gathered together before running around the camp inviting their friends to the party. As they sat round the cake, some of the children commented that it looked like an Autumn cake because of the leaves.
The children also engaged in some fantastic puppet making with Morwenna this week. They used sticks, card, scissors, pens, glue and googley eyes to make kings, queens, princesses and a ninja! After making the stick puppets, they got together to make their own puppet show creating their own narrative and using wonderful little voices for the characters.
On Friday, we enjoyed a wonderful fire to warm us up at the end of the week. We cooked marshmallows on the toasty fire as we sang our morning songs and ate our snack. The children absolutely loved the fire, studying the flames as they flickered about.
We hope you all have had a lovely week too and look forward to seeing you next week!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes