A Festival of Lights
It’s the beginning of November and it sure does feel like it! There’s a chill in the air, frosty grass in the mornings and our days are getting shorter. Our foresters have been creating lots of ways to keep warm as our days get colder, they know the importance of keeping active this time of year!
Our friends decided the meadow was the perfect spot for racing around as fast as a flash and trying to catch Conor, who must secretly be a real superhero as he was so speedy! Once we had warmed up, our thoughts turned to the animals in the forest. People can put on lots of layers to keep cosy, but what about our poor bird and squirrel friends that need to brave the winter?! Our foresters came up with a brilliant idea to create nests that would provide shelter for the coming months and scoured the meadow floor to find the perfect materials (stopping to jump in a few muddy puddles on the way of course).
Monday saw us examining the alphabet, selecting our favourite sequins and pom poms to stick the first letter of our names onto a huge display. Our friends are fast becoming experts at spotting not only their own letters but also those of friends, family and even educators!
This week the celebration of Diwali began, and our friends were so excited to learn about this amazing tradition. Diwali is a celebration of light over darkness, and good over evil. This Festival of Lights is celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs and Jains all across the world and can last up to five days! The word Diwali comes from a Sanskrit word “deepavali” which means rows of lighted lamps. Learning about other cultures and practices is such an important part of our forest school practice and we believe it’s what helps our children grow up to be such fantastic little people!
We began our Diwali preparations by practicing making diya candles from clay. We moulded our clay to the traditional tear or leaf shape and left them to dry and paint later.
Thursday marks the main day of celebration as our little foresters were spending most of the day at our indoor site, we took advantage of the resources available to us! We perfected our diya clay candles, using our thumbs to expertly press the middle down.
Using rice coloured with paint we created beautiful rangoli designs, then explored the textures and versatility of the rice. We scooped and scraped, creating birthday cakes and filling dumper trucks with the sprinkle like pieces. Our friends also enjoyed some chilly water play filled with colourful Petals and ice. Delving further into the light aspect of Diwali we created candles out of recycled materials. Some of our friends mentioned they were like fireworks, and this sparked a discussion about bonfire night and all the firework displays our friends are planning to see!
This week may have been slightly unusual as we were inside for some of it, but our little foresters are brilliant at adaptation and thriving in new environments. We’ve loved having the opportunity to play with some different resources, such as creating shredded paper snowstorms and humongous Lego towers. It has been a lovely change but we’re all definitely excited to be back in the forest next week!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick