Our Week in the Forest...
This week has been awash with golden sunshine as well as, sometimes, simply being awash in the traditional sense! Our team has worked hard to keep the energy and movement of the children up on cooler days to compensate for the dropping temperatures and yet, we have still been gifted with warmer moments when the children have opted to doff their jackets in favour of a high vis vest.
There has been a strong theme based around the question of “What belongs in the Forest?” this week. Marlon kicked it off with a spot-the-similarity game where he laid out a selection of very different items and asked the children to spot what linked them. This was the colour red and he then led them to decide, as a group, which ones were natural and able to be found in nature around us, and which ones were made. The children all shouted out their answers with enthusiasm, sometimes finding the decision a little tricky. Once all the natural items had been selected, which consisted of an array of red berries including Holly, Yew and Iris berries, it was the perfect platform to be able to talk to the children about how we act around these when we come across them in our surroundings.
Continuing along this theme, Harriet has been inspiring us to look after and protect our environment and the planet as a whole by encouraging changes in our practice and resources. The children are now using washable bamboo towels in place of kitchen roll for drying hands, mucky wipes for cleaning, and separating food waste into a compost bin. Refusing to slow down, she has now signed up our setting to the wonderful Schools and Nurseries scheme being piloted by Surfers Against Sewage who are aiming to remove plastic from schools wherever possible and promote a community mindedness to caring for the environment. As part of the project they provided us with large collection sacks and protective gloves which we trialled on an adventure walk, off the beaten path, on our way to camp one morning to see how much discarded litter we could find.
The children were empowered to seek out anything that didn’t belong in the forest and some voiced their own opinions and understanding of what it meant to look after the environment for ourselves and for our forest friends living in the undergrowth. Back at camp I held up items we had found and asked if they belonged in the forest to resounding shouts of “Nooooooooo!”. We talked about what we should do with rubbish and why it was important, for both us and for wildlife, that we didn’t drop it on the ground. What an amazing bunch of Eco-warriors! We will be continuing these walks and will be sending home Individual Action Plan pamphlets with the children for anyone who wants to continue this trend at home and help with the cause.
Aside from these world changing ideas, we have also focused on using natural materials for our play from using muddy water for watercolour painting, collecting beautiful coloured and textured leaves to construct a huge nest on the ground, and then connecting some of them together to create foxtails the children could wear!
What an inspiring week we have had and what fun the children have created with their ever-expanding imaginations! Have a wonderful weekend all!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham