Happy first week of term everybody!
What a fantastic week we have had so far with all the excitement of old friends returning as well as welcoming so many new friends to play with us in the Forest! It is so heart-warming to see how children of this age blend together effortlessly in play and to see new friends being welcomed into already established friendship groups.
Forest life can feel strange and the pace can feel very hectic for our new children, especially after such a lovely long time spent with families. The wonderful thing about the forest is the ease with which children can find calm space if needed. Without walls or a ceiling to bounce back noises, children can step aside to sit down with a book or to listen to a story in peace without being very far away from their friends. It is so refreshing for us as Educators to witness our new Little Forest Folk-ers exploring their new environment and to see it all through fresh eyes.
The site that we use has zones for the children to move about between depending on their interests from moment to moment; the Nest with the climbing tree, the mud kitchen, the stage, the loose parts area and the blue castle which is a second mud kitchen at the other end of camp. We provide planks, logs, sticks and cable reels for the children to investigate and build with and already we have seen some of our new friends copying or joining in with our regular children to create roads, practice balancing and build houses to live in. We model and support the children in sharing and taking turns and it is always so heartening to hear the older children step in to explain to their young friends in moments of friction, “It’s ok, don’t worry… maybe when she’s finished, she could give it to you after?”.
The mud kitchens have proven themselves as the place to be this week and we have been fed all sorts of delicious foods. We’ve eaten birthday cake (blow the candles out first!), pancakes, pizza, cupcakes and even some sushi! Using pots, pans, spoons and saucepans they mimic movements and processes they’ve witnessed at home and we love to see the pride in their face as they offer up their creation for us to try!
The Forest School Trained Educators oversee exploration of the climbing tree and as much as possible we use only words to help the children negotiate their way through the wonderfully tangled branches. We are always ready to physically support if there is a slip but talking a child through how to manoeuvre their way out of a sticky patch gives them a fantastic sense of achievement and they learn so much about their abilities and gain a sense of their own limits.
Welcoming back our friends from last term has been wonderful and it is exciting to see the changes that occurred in these weeks away. Vocabularies have broadened, confidence has grown, and a lot of children have gotten taller too! We see a difference in their desire to engage with role play and their willingness to negotiate the terms of a game with their friends without needing support from an Educator to keep up. Songs have been requested and apparently some of our songs have made it home to be taught to Mums and Dads too!
What a happy bunch they are, and we can’t wait to see what next week brings as they continue to explore!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham