I can see clearly now the rain is gone!
This week has been an absolute roller-coaster of weather, and we’ve loved every second of it! On Friday we received torrential rain which filled our camps with lake sized puddles and unseen quantities of squelchy mud. When we became inundated with mud and rain, we took to the gardens and sprinted through more puddles with glee. We also saw other effects of the rain like the river overflowing its banks and a great clay hill for sliding down. We had great fun getting “stuck” in muddy holes and calling to rescuers to save us from certain peril!
The sun decided to make some much-welcomed appearances after the monsoon and made the forest look brand new. We’ve had lots of discussion around what Spring will bring in the coming months.
Lion cakes and tiger pancakes have yet again been a hot topic in the forest. Mixing and combining ingredients have been just as important as foraging fresh toppings from the forest floor. When all the customers were served, we turned our pots upside down to entertain them with percussion and song.
We’ve had some new resources in the forest that have been much enjoyed and inspired quite a bit of thought and discussion. One of which are some fancy laminates of a huge range of animals, some familiar and some strange and fantastic. We have been speculating whether we think they are omnivores, carnivores or herbivores and thinking what exactly that means, and how the food chain works in nature. To take this further we’ve been investigating our large animal encyclopaedias to learn more about animals’ habitats, diets and relations to each other.
There has been plenty of arts and crafts keeping our friends busy. There's been mud and clay painting, decorating paper covered trees in our camps. Cutting and tying activities to make bows and arrows, leaf brushes and flower wands. We've also had a troop of forest knights defending the camps from invasion, and we've been building tiny houses for forest spirits to come and live in after we leave the woods.
Our ice cream trees have been staying open with a dedicated team of dairy experts, serving just the right treat to match the weather. Ice cream in the sun and hot chocolate in the cold! There have also been plenty of physical opportunities such as rope swings, spider webs (for balancing and fitting our bodies through) and pulley systems for raising and lowering things!
Hope you all had a wonderful week, looking forward to seeing you all for fuller days of fun and merriment in the coming weeks!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick