Our Week in the Forest...
This week has been a beautiful mixture of cool mornings with long shadows meeting us at camp and gorgeously warm afternoons where our Little Forest Folk-ers can still run around in their t-shirts or jumpers.
The children have been absolutely tool-tastic this week with a huge interest in the sawing and drilling area of the forest. One of the hardest things to learn in this activity isn’t the handling of the tools themselves but the waiting for a turn! Our little forest folk are able to sit on benches and watch what their friends are doing and we have some fantastic chats to help the time go faster. It can be quite a tricky thing, especially for our younger friends, to understand that they need to wait when they really, really want to do it now! We ensure a huge amount of positive reinforcement for doing this and remind them that it’s important for staying safe while we help them to still enjoy their time.
This week we have seen some of the wood cookies being drilled with one to one support from a Forest School trained teacher and then threaded with care to make watches, necklaces and even pirate eyepatches!
Continuing with the pirate theme, the children have been drawing treasure maps and using them to hunt for the "golden wood cookie" treasure hidden around the forest, digging it up and sharing it around with enthusiasm!
It is fantastic to see the children grow in confidence as they become more and more familiar with the camp and with their new friends. Some of them squeezed and huddled themselves inside a hula hoop that was then designated as a vehicle taking them to Portugal and it was brilliant to watch the chaotic hilarity as they all tried to move around together in a bundle. They flow from activity to activity depending on their interest meaning that their engagement is high and opportunity for learning is everywhere. Sometimes this may be listening to stories being read or told, working together to construct a den or learning how to use wood cookies for printing with paint.
The children are confidently approaching team members to seek comfort or ask for help with a tricky task and we are building a real idea of who our new friends are as more of their little personalities are revealed.
What a wonderful week!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham