Play in the forest this week has been mostly about water and mud! Every day puddles took new forms and textures, and the children didn’t hesitate to explore them! They jumped into watery puddles making bigger and bigger splashes. They slid into the slimy and muddy puddles and listened as the mud squelched and slopped around. They ran down paths that had turned into freely flowing streams looking closely as the water rushed over tiny pebbles taking leaves and twigs with it!
To get onto camp, a bridge was required as the ditch was so full of water! The children carefully balanced as they stepped over the makeshift plank bridge! Later, on camp, the children set about collecting the gloopiest mud they could find and gathered it together to make a wonderful wobbly jelly-like mud mountain! The texture of the mud was amazing as it seemed to be both liquid and solid at the same time. The children explored this substance testing how it reacted as they walked through it, poked it with a stick or picked some up and dropped it!
As the rains poured the children watched as water gathered in pools at the low points on camp. One puddle formed near our giant log, so the children decided to climb up to the top and launch themselves into it creating the biggest splash we’ve ever seen. Covered in mud and water the children grinned from ear to ear. Some used the mud-covered planks to make marks on, they found little sticks to scrape away at the mud writing their names and creating pictures of the sun, leaves and flowers!
On one day, some children found clay when digging in the mud. They turned the clay into gold for their pirate ship! First, they sailed and rowed across the seas to find an island! They then followed their map to start the dig with a stick. Once the yellow clay had been found they stored it in a little chamber in the side of the makeshift ship and set sail again to find more treasures!
We hope you all have had lovely weeks too and we hope you all have wonderful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Putney Heath