What a crazy week of weather we have had, we think we can officially say Welcome to Autumn! Today has dawned with a soggy start to refill all of our lovely big puddles and developed into a wonderful blustery day to blow away all our cobwebs. The mud kitchen will have been softened beautifully for digging and scooping, and the children will be able to use pots, pans, ladles and spoons to transport extra water from nearby puddles to create perfectly oozy mud or watery concoctions of hot chocolate and soup!
The week started with a construction that the children then decided was a pirate ship. They spent the whole morning role playing this scurvy theme with treasure and walking the plank aplenty. This continued into the afternoon with some of the children deciding to draw pirate treasure maps, adding details like trees and rivers or paths to show the way to the buried hoard.
A climbing frame was constructed out of pallets with a bench for a slide and some of our younger children wowed us with their confidence and resilience to challenge themselves. They persisted when it got tough through verbal encouragement and support from their educators and were so proud when they showed us that they could do it themselves! We love when we see this transformation from unsure steps and grip with wobbly balance to these confident climbers who know exactly what to do and get a thrill from repeating this exciting activity over and over, building their confidence and reassessing their perception of risk.
Katie led a paper making activity where she took some of our used drawing and packing paper that others had helped to rip up on a different day and blended it with water until it made a giant tub of sludgy soup and showed the children how to scoop up ladles of the mixture and drop it onto the special screen that was balanced over the tub. The children were fascinated by the process and took turns to scoop and spread the mixture evenly. Once it was finished, a board was laid on top and the children laughed as they jumped all over it to squeeze out the water. The still-soggy sheet was then laid between tea towels and carefully pressed with a dry sponge to squish out the last of the water and then it was ready to be left to dry upstairs in our indoor space. We can’t wait to see their faces when they see the finished result!
We also visited the walled garden this week to see the changes that the end of summer is bringing and the children marvelled at the different kinds of pumpkins growing. Some were small and funny shaped, and others were big juicy chubby things that they investigated with their hands, patting and stroking them as they looked from all angles. It is a great place for a quick game of hide and seek as well and they loved taking turns to practice their counting while friends squealed and wriggled into hiding places.
We are so happy to see this seasonal change and love the feeling of autumn in the air. The environment changes so much and it’s wonderful to watch as our children stop to look closely at the differences, they encounter on adventure walks and in camp. It sparks conversations and older children share their knowledge with their younger friends as well as making new discoveries themselves.
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham