How this week has gone so fast, nobody knows! One thing we know for sure is that this week was full of adventures and unexpected turns. The weather kept surprising us with glorious sunshine one moment, just to turn into heavy rain moments after. This was however, welcomed by all of us in the forest as it meant splashing, jumping in puddles and having all that lovely water to play with!
Our week started with a ‘no resource day’ where we put very little activities out and let the children come up with their own ideas of games and activities. This is usually when we see all those magical moments emerge, when imagination comes to play, and the educators are invited to join that wonderful world as well. So, in a day we had a dragon’s den being built, some Kings and Queens ruling over the camp and our favourite “Who wants some ice-cream?!” exclaimed over and over again in both camps. We never stop being amazed by how quickly an object as simple as a leaf can turn into a vanilla ice-cream, a sandwich or a page of a book!
The leaves have been useful in other activities too. The children worked together as a team to shake the rainbow parachute and decided to put leaves in the middle. They then decided to count some of these leaves, which was a lovely way of reinforcing their knowledge of numbers and once the sufficient number of leaves was on the parachute, the children vigorously shook them off. If it wasn’t for lunchtime approaching, we would have been playing this game for hours!
One very exciting moment in the forest this week was a visit from a... bear! The creature must have smelt our delicious soup that we had for lunch and decided to pay us a visit. The children very quickly spotted the hairy visitor and carefully watched as the animal walked around both campuses, sniffing for treats and scratching its back on the tree bark. One would assume that the bear would be a rather unwelcome or feared creature, however our Little Forest Folk-ers never cease to surprise us. They invited the bear for some tea and biscuits, demanded that the bear read them some stories and when the animal was too tired, they made a lovely and cosy den using soft leaves and sticks to make the lair ever so soft. For some reason the bear was named Asia Bear, but the educators haven’t got a smallest clue why the children would choose such a name.
One of our focused activities this week was a letter game, where letters scattered the forest floor and the children had to find them and put them into alphabetical order. It was much easier to recall the letters and remember them by looking at the objects they were paired with. So, we had some bananas for letter ‘b’, a fork for letter ‘f’ and so on. Some children had a go at putting the found letters onto the floor and creating simple words such as ‘cat’ and ‘dog.’ It is always lovely to have something to ‘hunt for’ in the glorious surroundings we are exposed to every day. Not only do we have a fun game to play but we are often realising how our environment is changing day by day and how the seasons are turning nature into a different form.
We will see you next week for some more mischief but for now we wish you a restful and fun-filled weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick