Our Week in the Forest...
This week in the forest there has been such an array of activities that despite it being cold, the children have been kept busy and active.
One highlight was the trip we took to the café. It’s lovely to hear the children shouting good morning to the two Chris’ (who are two of the gardeners) or hear them exclaim ‘there’s Chris’ digger!’. The children are beginning to have an understanding that there are different people who work at the gardens and there are different jobs to do. As the café is such an important part of Fulham Palace, we thought it would be a great opportunity to help the children develop their understanding of the world by going to order some babyccinos. Some of the children went in to help order, while others waited patiently outside. It must be said that some of the children were in their element, clearly veteran café goers! After a babyccino, it was then time to run around before going home.
The addition of our new pulley has meant we have mastered the technique of zip lines! The children have enjoyed zooming between trees and squeals of excitement could often be heard. We have also had evermore increasingly complex pulley systems whereby children can transport items from tree to tree. It’s a joy to see the children problem solve as they try to figure out what happens when they pull one rope opposed to the other or how different items will affect how hard it is to pull the rope.
We also had a very surreal moment this week where it was a pleasure to see how much our children enjoy literacy. Supertato has been a real theme throughout the week, and the addition of three new Supertato books have meant the children have requested these at almost every mealtime. Not only that but around the forest ‘Veggies assemble!’ or ‘Oh no, The Evil Pea!’ can be heard coming from bushes and trees. On this occasion, the children had been asked to set up the benches ready for lunch. Usually we sit in a circle, but on this day, they happened to set them out all in a line. When asked if that’s how they wanted to have lunch, they concurred that it was. What was then so lovely to see was how several of them chose a book and independently sat down to flick through the pages. When then asked if anyone else wanted to look through a story before lunch, almost all the other children decided they did too. For the 5 or 10 minutes the children were waiting for their lunch, it was amazing how silently and intently the children focused on their stories, sometimes nudging the person beside them and pointing to pictures.
Next week we look forward to welcoming some new children for our holiday camp and hope any of our regulars who won’t be here have a lovely week.
Little Forest Folk
Fulham