Our Week in the Forest...
Harvesting veggies, helicopter stories and rope ladders!
This week we have been harvesting vegetables and wild flowers in our allotment. The produce has been fantastic this year, with the children being able to try lots of home grown (by them) veggies and some even taking some home to share with their families! By far though, our most exciting harvest this week has to be our trumpet courgette which can only be described as having the appearance of a large jungle snake! The children enjoyed feeling the weight of this monster courgette around their necks before cutting it up to try as their afternoon snack! The allotment is a fantastic opportunity for our children to trace where their food comes from and also the effort it takes to grow these fantastic foods.
Following on from our helicopter stories from last week, the children have been asking to write and perform more of them. We have therefore been setting up a theatre each day for the children to write, practice and perform their creations. Our fabulous educator Jaye has been heading up these projects and supporting the children with writing their stories and bringing them to life. It is great to see the children excited about literacy and narrative, and to also see how they interpret and perform their stories when not given any prompts or suggestions from their educators. By using helicopter stories as a practice in our forest the children are truly free to express their creativity.
Two other activities that have been very popular this week have been our rope ladder and hammock! The children have enjoyed balancing out their time, challenging themselves to use their strength to climb the rope ladder supervised by the educators and then also 'relaxing' in the hammock, where many children ask to be swung side to side, almost giving the sensation of a boat on a stormy sea! Talking about storms, the children have also enjoyed some fantastic downpours of rain this week transforming our site into a muddy playground complete with a mud slide and mud skating rink!
We hope you too have had a fantastic week, and have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick