Investigating, exploring and questioning!
Our Week in the Forest
Play was the highest form of research this week in the forest, with our Little Forest Folkers investigating, experimenting and questioning.
The children began to explore a range of different maths concepts, astounding us with their counting, measuring and estimating skills. We had a number of different shaped and sized vessels at our water station, and the children guessed if one container could hold as much as another of a different size. There were a few close calls with water nearly spilling over the brim!
Gnome party :-)
We spent quite some time playing with the magnetic shapes, naming the shapes, counting the corners and discussing patterns, before joining the magnetic shapes together to create rockets, cement mixers, lions and tigers and a castle for cats!
Each morning on our walk in to base camp, we stop at the Bishops Tree and say good morning to Bishop Porteus. The children have decided that the Bishop looks over the gardens to make sure everybody is respecting the Palace, the trees and the animals.
This ties in nicely with our forest rule of ‘Be Kind’.
Fun in the forest!
The children have been incredibly responsive to the Forest Rules so far, reminding each other of what we do at the rainbow ribbons and how to keep each other safe. Thor even made a rainbow using the magnetic shapes, so he could remind the other children and teachers what to do when you see a rainbow ribbon!
Role play has become a prominent part of the children’s day, with cooking in our ‘mud kitchen’ being the current hot topic! The teachers have been spoiled all week with stone soup, mud pies, ‘chocolate’ cakes, ‘coffee’, dessert and Walter’s famous ‘sausages and eggs’.
Our physical development has been challenged with lots of running on uneven ground, up and down hills whilst navigating sticks, stones and stumps. The tree has provided hours of entertainment from climbing to looking in the tree hollows, finding bugs and feeling the rough surface of the bark.
Next week
We will again focus on building relationships and getting to know the children. We aim to have some more adventure walks around Fulham Palace – the children want to find the sleeping dragon who lives in the gardens!!
Important notes:
- We will be holding a parent evening on Monday 31st October from 4pm-6pm at Cuckoo Hibou. This will be a chance to have an informal chat regarding your child’s settling and time in the forest so far, as well as setting goals for the future. These conversations shouldn’t take longer than 15 minutes, and timeslots will be allocated on a ‘first in first served’ basis. To book a timeslot please see check your email.
- A reminder to parents not to bring any food from home into the Forest – we have some children attending the setting who have severe allergies, so to minimize risk for these children, we provide all meals.
- Please be sure to drop your children off dressed in their waterproofs with a backpack containing spare clothes and a water bottle.
We hope you have a lovely weekend, from all of us at Little Forest Folk Fulham.