Our Week in the Forest...
It’s week two of our holiday camps and as well as welcoming back familiar faces we also have met some new friends who were in the forest for the first time this week. It was so lovely to see our regular nursery children taking care of their new friends, showing them what to do and where to play. The climbing tree and swings have been real favourites this week along with our book area. After settling down to read “Winnie’s new computer” one group of children decided they wanted to make their own magic wands. First, they had to find a stick that measured from their elbow to their hand. Lots of hunting and measuring took place until they found the perfect wand sized stick. An educator helped them attach some string and they set about collecting items to make their wands super magical. When the children had finished, our new witches and wizards headed off into the forest to try out their wands. Cries of “Abracadabra you’ve turned blue!’ could be heard throughout the site as they practiced and perfected their spells.
Later in the week the children went on an adventure to the walled garden to collect items of different colours, different smells and different textures. They bumped into Alice, the gardener they met last week and stopped for a quick chat, before continuing with their hunt. There were so many beautiful flowers to look at and smell. The educators were very impressed that everyone remembered our ‘no picking’ rule and only collected leaves and flowers that had fallen onto the floor. Some of the children made crowns and bracelets and they all proudly shared what they had made at circle time at the end of the day.
Another exiting development this week was a coffee shop that sprang up in the mud kitchen with Lattes, English breakfast tea, hot chocolate, full English breakfast, croissants and cupcakes on the menu. The coffee shop keepers worked out their menu and how much to charge their customers. They took orders on their notepads and even did takeaway deliveries to other parts of the forest. It was great seeing them use their maths and literacy skills to work out how many coffees they needed and who they were for.
Moving on from our mud kitchen food, on Thursday we collected the herbs we have been growing from the green house in the walled garden and wow how they had grown! The children used scissors to cut the herbs and talked about cooking and eating herbs at home. They all decided that herbs were good for you and wanted to have a taste. After all the herbs were cut, an educator helped the children wash them and they smelt and tasted each one. Everyone had their favourite, some liked the aromatic basil best whilst others preferred the tickley dill or the tangled thyme. It has been wonderful this week watching our Little Forest Folk-ers using all their senses to explore the forest and discover new things.
Little Forest Folk
Fulham