Our Week in the Forest...
Holiday campers have filled the forest this week bringing new faces, excitement and an adventurous spirit. The forest has been full of physical challenges with a rope bridge, slacklines, logs to balance along and up and a variety of swings to enjoy. This week the children worked hard to create a tree house with the support of the adults. This involved adventuring deeper into the forest to locate long sturdy logs and then transporting them back across the forest to the 'construction site'. The children worked in pairs to carry the logs, before securely positioning them between the trees to create a structure that was perfect for climbing on. The children loved climbing up to the tree house using log steps or pulling themselves up the logs, what a display of upper body strength! Getting down presented lots of fun as well, as the children slid their way back down the logs over and over again. The tree house has been popular all week, with the children’s imaginations changing day to day as it turned from a pirate ship, to a bus, to a bridge for the trolls, to an office for “checking information”.
We limited the number of children allowed in the tree house at one time to ensure everyone had enough space to explore and play. This also encouraged the children to think about and manage risk as they checked whether there was enough space for them before climbing up to join their friends. Some of the holiday campers took it upon themselves to police the tree house during the afternoon, instructing the other children that the area was closed as there was no teacher present to support the children’s climbing. Throughout the week we have continued to build on and improve the structure, seeking out the longest logs and creating a larger platform for the children to sit on.
On an adventure walk along the lake this week we found the Egyptian goslings resting by the water’s edge. It was amazing to see how big they had grown and how their feathers were more closely resembling their parents. We counted seven goslings and talked about the changes we had observed over the past months. The children told us that they were no longer babies but teenagers now and tried to call them over to the fence for a play.
As usual the mud kitchen has been in full operation and the children have been busy serving up lasagne, chocolate, ice-cream and sausages with mash. There is always so much food being shared around the forest!
Have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk Chiswick