Our Week in the Forest...
This week the children have been exploring the forest in new ways. The warm sunshine has finally shown itself again and the signs of spring are just beginning to appear.
On one day, the children drew their own treasure map out on paper. They started to get super excited as we planned to use the map to go off in search of the treasure on the common. We organised a big adventure with the children leading the whole thing. They took turns using the map deciding which way to go next, whilst discussing if they were getting closer to the X on the map. The children showed great teamwork as they made decisions democratically. They went across the meadows, through deep thick ‘jungle’ and up the steep ‘mountains’.
As they were walking through the forest, the children started noticing new shoots starting to spring up out of the ground. The children thought they could be dandelions and we decided that we would keep returning to this spot to check. After a few minutes looking for flowers the children suddenly remembered their treasure map and they announced that they were lost. They gathered together again and discovered that they had been holding their map upside down the whole time. They continued to follow their map when all of a sudden one of the children heard a popping sound. He said, “I think I can hear the flowers popping open!”. They all ran down the path and there in a clearing was a single dandelion flower open in the sun. The children were extremely excited stating that they had found their golden treasure! When we returned to basecamp the children were discussing how long it will be until spring arrives so we looked at a Calendar and counted out the remaining days of winter.
At camp this week the children have been getting very creative with natural materials both on a small and large scale. Equipped with string, some children created their own mini theme parks for minibeasts. They tied sticks together to make mini houses, mini rope ladders and mini slides. Other children also grabbed some card and double sided sticky tape, they cut out hearts from colourful paper and found natural materials to stick onto their card crowns, magic wands and magic necklaces. On another day, a large group of children got together to make their own huge obstacle course. They used ropes, planks and logs to create balance areas, climbing areas and jumping areas. The educators were challenged to complete it alongside the children and we all had great fun. It was amazing to see the level of support the children gave each other both in building the obstacle course and when helping each other to get around it.
We hope you have managed to enjoy the sunshine this week and have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes