Our Week in the Forest...
This week in the forest has been full of wonder. The children have explored their ever-changing environment engaging in a wide range of experiences that have inspired fascination, conversation and investigation at an incredibly deep level.
The park rangers have recently put up some hedgehog spy cameras and mini hedgehog houses as part of a study on the hedgehog population on our green spaces. This has both fascinated and inspired our little explorers. They have investigated the cameras and learnt about motion detectors and infrared light. They were also lucky enough to have one of the rangers show us the hedgehog house so that we could see the type of environment that hedgehogs like to hide in during the daytime. The children have been so excited by this that we are now starting a hedgehog house building project with them where they will build their own versions of a hedgehog house using natural materials and tools that we will support them with.
When the ranger visited, he arrived in his special buggy. The children gathered round to get a closer look at the vehicle and very kindly the ranger let them have sit in the drivers seat and explained how it works. We talked to the children about how the rangers use the buggies to transport all sorts of things around the common. The children talked about collecting rubbish to make sure the hedgehogs don’t eat any of it!
The children have also been engaged in some wonderful art activities this week. They made their own ‘wild’ masks using card, string and natural materials. It was brilliant to see how dexterous many of the children are as they threaded their own string through little holes they had made. The children have also been acting out their own stories and developing them into group role-plays with families of cats, hedgehogs and dogs.
A wonderful zip line enabled the children to challenge themselves both physically and mentally. The children had to climb a tree carefully respecting others who were also wanting to have a go, this was done seamlessly as the excitement grew and the children discussed what it feels like to go flying down on the zip line. Once at the top the children had a choice, they could either climb around the trunk of the tree to a platform and launch themselves independently or go straight through a gap and have an adult support them onto the zip. It was amazing to see how the children grew in confidence as more and more children sought to take a risk and challenge themselves further. Once they were moving down the line they also had the challenge of lifting their legs up high to extend their ride and also preparing themselves for landing at the end.
We are all super excited to see what will happen next week as the children delve deeper into exploring their own ideas again.
Little Forest Folk
Barnes