Our Week in the Forest...
Winter has certainly arrived in the forest with a wet and cold start to the week. Wrapped up in their new winter waterproofs, hats and gloves the children had great fun splashing in puddles and making loads of sloppy concoctions in and around our mud pit. When they wanted a rest from the rain there was our cosy book tent to relax inside where they could read their favourite books or the large tipi where they could make watches, bracelets or necklaces from tree cookie shapes which we had previously made using the billhook.
This week the little diva pots the children have been making over the last couple of weeks were finished and Bella brought them to the forest to be filled with candles for our special Rama & Sita story. The children carefully choose a pot and filled it with a candle. They then chose where to place the pot on the ground in the middle of the log circle. Bella explained to the children how she would light the candles but first there were some fire safety rules. The children listened carefully to the rules and practiced walking around the outside of the log circle rather than through the middle where the ‘fire’ would be. After everyone had practiced, Bella lit the candles in the pots and read the children the story of Rama and Sita. This story is familiar to most of our children as we have had it in our story tent for the last few weeks. At the end of the story Bella reminded the children that some people light divas at Diwali and they leave the candles burning all night. Bella explained we couldn’t leave our candles burning all night in the forest. The children wanted to blow out the candles so Bella carefully took them around the log circle so each child could blow out a candle.
As the children walked into the forest on Thursday they were told about a secret mission, the educators wondered if they would be able to help? The children were curious about what this was all about, but all the educators knew that the children had to use all their creative skills and knowledge of the forest to collect the most beautiful forest leaves they could find and stick them to some special sticky paper. So off they all excitedly went exploring every corner of the forest, discovering leaves of every shape and colour and attaching them to their paper. Once they were happy with their collections the group headed down to the nursery, still very curious about the secret mission and were eager to find out more once they had arrived. After they had all settled down for their snack Marlon arrived and the secret was revealed, it was a Chameleon, and the chameleon had asked if the children could use all their skills to create the forest colours on their papers so that his friends could camouflage themselves! They made their own chameleon and found a beautiful piece of forest in which to hide them.
Little Forest Folk
Fulham