The weather has been playing lots of tricks with us this week. We had misty mornings, midday showers and sun-filled afternoons, sometimes all in one day! This was a real test, not only to our resilience, but also to the lovely new waterproofs that we got to try on this week. We think we look rather spectacular in them!
We have had such a fun filled packed week, it is hard to know where to start!
Following our interest in animals and after having so many of us pretending to be various creatures, we followed this theme with a rather challenging activity that Shenay set for us. Looking at the small figurines of various animals, we had to decide what diet they follow. We needed to first discuss whether they were omnivores, carnivores or herbivores. This not only enriched our vocabulary and sparked our imagination, but it also gave us great understanding of the world around us. The activity also made us think more about our own food and where it comes from. We were able to discuss which food groups go into which category, a rather useful thing to know! Unsurprisingly very soon a lot of us turned into animals ourselves, playing make-believe and creating new imaginative scenarios!
Our physical development was prompted by a lot of challenges that were set-up in the forest throughout both camps. We had an obstacle course in the red camp where we had to jump, climb, crawl, twist and use our agility to complete the task. Some of us took the course even further and decided to use the rope to ‘catch’ our friends making us run around and escape from the makeshift lasso. Red camp had an enormous swing which is our favourite, as it makes us go really high but also gives as an opportunity to assess risk and learn boundaries and safety of ourselves and others. We are able to make right choices when we know that we need an educator to assist us in getting on the swing and staying supported when on it. But above all it’s just so lovely to lean back and swish through the air and have a lovely view of tree tops swinging right in front of our eyes. Green team had a different set of physical challenges, fun and engaging nevertheless! We had a climbing frame hang between two trees that had a loose part in the middle to help us climb higher but also served as a swinging, coordination challenge. To assist our muscle growth, we had an upper body swing available too that not only exercised our arms but our core muscles!
To nourish our design and artistic skills, we had lots of cardboard being used to create a tree, which we then kept in order to decorate our indoor space with. By mixing various colours of red, yellow and orange, we achieved a beautiful shade of orange that we decorated the cardboard with. It was lovely to observe and experiment with the colours, which was also a great additional sensory experience for our hands. Later on we added real leaves collected that day to our tree to make it even more spectacular. The red team was creating a ‘rainbow house’ by attaching our favourite rainbow parachute to the trees and decorating the logs with colourful chalk.
As per usual we had stations with letters, numbers and books that never cease to be popular as we explore them whenever we are not running around, pretending to be dinosaurs or making mud cakes which is now our favourite activity!
Have a lovely weekend and make sure you recharge for some more fun in the following week!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick