With the spring equinox behind us, it's truly an exciting time in the forest! 🌳 Spring is here, and our intrepid explorers have been experts at spotting the signs! Of course, a few weeks ago, the sun tricked us into thinking spring had arrived before the equinox, but our clever Little Forest Folk explorers couldn't be fooled. The signs, however, are all here now, and we've been enjoying adventures this week to see the magnolias, almond blossoms, daffodils, and wild garlic! Everything is in bloom, including our young minds! 🌱We love winter but are 🌸blooming 🌼 happy to see spring arrive!
What better intent to focus on this week than life cycles in nature? Whether it’s walking to see our friendly chickens and discussing their eggs or looking at our gorgeous Fulham pond and watching out for frogspawn, there are opportunities to discuss life cycles everywhere! 🐣🐸
This week, we’ve done lots of planting activities 🌱. The fruits of our labour are now growing in our indoor space, ready to be enjoyed, observed, and brought out for everyone to see 🍓🌿. The children have been enthusiastically engaged, and it has given us a wonderful chance to discuss how plants grow from tiny seeds into the mighty trees around us 🌳🌻! We are so lucky at Fulham to be surrounded by beautiful flowers and plants year-round! Equally, we are surrounded by our hardworking team of gardeners 👨🌾👩🌾 whose hard work allows us to enjoy such magical surroundings. 🧙🧙🏽♂️✨Inspired by them and our own ample gardening this week, we set up a garden shop stand inspired by the very same one we have on the grounds. We had flower bouquets 💐 (perfect for Mother's Day), as well as plants for sale🪴
What better children's book to have as our book in the spotlight this week than the all-time classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar! 🐛 Maria created a wonderful, themed setup, only improved by the real-life butter yellow butterflies that have been spreading themselves all over camp this week! Time flies (or should I say butterflies) when you’re having fun, and we certainly did with a Hungry Caterpillar climbing frame and themed puppets for the children to use. We got out our butterfly dressing-up clothes 🦋, and our magnifying glasses 🔍 to search for bugs! It was all very insecting... sorry, I mean interesting! 🐞
Speaking of a special day this Sunday... all the stars aligned on Thursday for a themed day that fit perfectly with our life cycles intent, excitement for Mother's Day, and last, but certainly not least, Donna's penultimate day before she goes on maternity leave. 🤰🏻In anticipation, we set up a maternity ward and discussed how babies grow in tummies before they arrive as little brothers and sisters! The ward featured a special mud kitchen with a Costa Coffee stand—essential for a UK hospital ☕️! We had cots for the newborns, and the children, or should I say forest midwives and doctors 👩⚕️👨⚕️, enjoyed swaddling the babies and putting real-life nappies on them. It was great to discuss how Donna will see the doctor and go to the hospital but isn't unwell! Luckily, although all our mini doctors and midwives were working hard, it wasn't exactly hard labour!
We even had a special sonogram machine. It was the perfect opportunity to celebrate Donna and deliver her a special card from all of us, wishing her luck! 💖
Little Forest Folk
Fulham