Chiswick - Winter is not a season, it's a celebration!

Winter is not a season, it's a celebration!

The year’s most festive month is upon us, and we’ve got all the glitter and candy canes to prove it. From stories about freshly fallen snow to Christmas carols and even a few attempts to make our own Christmas trees, the Christmas spirit is taking over our beautiful forest.

Our week started off with storm Barra, bringing lots of high winds and icy temperatures. To keep ourselves safe from the storm, we decided to spend our afternoon back at the Hogarth centre where we spent a lovely afternoon out in our garden. However, as we all know, we love being outside we made the most from our morning out in the woods, running up and down at camp and helping educators build a perfect shelter from the rain.

There is always a shine after the storm, and this week’s weather was not an exception. The following days were beautiful and sunny, and we were so happy to be back in the wild. Lately, our Little Forest Folk-ers have been really inspired to create all kinds of stuff using clay – from spaghetti to Christmas ornaments. As we all know, Santa could really use some help from some extra elves, for him to be able to make and deliver presents all around the world. Together with our new forest educator Esme, this Tuesday we worked on our fine motor skills, by using clay to make lovely little Christmas elves.

Later this week we continued our arts and crafts work, by making some delicious Christmas clay cookies. We rolled our sleeves, and we rolled the ‘dough’ and added a pinch of mud and sticks for extra flavour. We used our brand-new Christmas cookie cutters to cut out candy canes, rain deer, Christmas trees and snowflake cookies, that were later served at our busy mud kitchen. On the same note, together with Charlie, we made some more Christmas trees, snowmen, and deer, but this time we used small wooden figurines that we personalised by adding colours and glitter of our choice.

Even though we have been focusing a lot on our fine motor skills and improving our tripod grips, while gluing shiny pompoms, we also have been working on our growing control over our strong bodies. This week we have tested our balancing skills on the slackline, trying to go from one end to the other with minimal adult support. We have been swinging high and low on our favourite swing, as well as climbing logs and trees to keep our strong legs in shape.

Can't wait to see what shiny surprises there might be next week at our Christmas forest grotto!

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

🎄Quote of the week:
"Maybe Christmas," he thought, "Doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas... perhaps... means a little bit more." - How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Dr. Suess

Little Forest Folk
Chiswick