Our Week in the Forest...
With some wonderful summer like weather the children have explored the forest with an added spring in their step as they shed their waterproofs. They went off on lots of adventures, spotting all the wildlife that has come out in the sun. They have also enjoyed lots of calm and creative activities exploiting the still atmosphere and warmth in the air!
The children have been taking an extra long adventure on their walk out to the forest as they decided to search for minibeasts! They found spiders and learnt all about how a spider creates its web, catches flies and then uses its saliva to turn its meal into soup before drinking it all up! We also spotted yellow ladybirds, red ladybirds and different types of shield bugs. The children were super excited by this because they were able to identify their finds on our identification cards! They showed wonderful communication skills as they discussed which minibeasts they wanted to find next. They then had deep discussions about where they might find these minibeasts and why, and discussed the habitats and food that each creature likes.
Creativity really took off this week as the children created their own special little houses for the minibeasts using sticks, grass and leaves. Walls were careful stitched together and areas for sleeping and eating were allocated! The children also have been painting using different natural objects instead of using paint brushes. They found fine dried stems for making outlines and pieces of cow parsley to paint larger areas. They each had their own project in mind and got so involved that hours passed before their artwork was complete and ready to hang on our washing line display!
The children’s creativity went wild as they noticed Ranger Bill coming past our camp holding a map of the common. The children decided that it must be a map to some treasure! Perhaps those elusive golden underpants again? They then set about drawing and designing their own maps of the common outlining the routes they wanted to take and the details along the way. Once competed, a big adventure was organised so that the maps could be followed in pursuit of their different treasures!
We are all looking forward to seeing where the children will take us next on our journeys through the forest and we hope you all have a wonderful long weekend, see you back in the forest next Wednesday!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes