It’s the most wonderful time of the year for learning about our bodies and the ways to keep them healthy!

What a cold start we had this week, but we still saw so many sparkling smiles that inspired us to think all about our teeth and how we look after them. This prompted some interesting questions. Do animals brush their teeth? We set off into the Arboretum to see what we could spot, but there was not a tooth brushing squirrel or a flossing owl in sight! There were however some Christmas nutcrackers in the path with big bright smiles. Using sticks covered in lichen, the children used their forest toothbrushes to scrub the nutcracker’s teeth.

We started off the week exploring the magic of shapes in the forest. The children spotted shapes in the natural environment and discussed which they liked the best. We kept warm exploring the different shapes of our obstacle course and then spent a cosy early evening making some lovely circle and star shaped Christmas tree ornaments for our nursery Christmas tree.

We had a fruity start to the week by exploring some of our favourite or least favourite fruits. We had a polling station where the children could talk about their favourite fruits

Everyone also had great fun every day expressing themselves on a great big easel using colours of paint that were used in the painting inspiration for each day. 

This week at Little Forest Folk Winkworth we have been having a great deal of halloween-inspired fun, using it to play and explore fear and other emotions in a super safe environment. 

This week at Little Forest Folk Winkworth has been full of autumn fun as we’ve embraced the wild and windy weather. We started our week illuminating the darker mornings and evenings in our forest with all the colours of Diwali! The children ventured out for all the excitement and laughter of a big rain walk adventure.

We started the week hunting for mushrooms in the Arboretum. Our intrepid Little Forest Folk-ers set out on their adventure walk with maps of the Arboretum and laminated sheets to identify different types of fungi. It was wonderful to see the children excitedly point out landmarks and signposts that they saw on the map in real life.
First they transformed into billy goats on an exciting adventure all the way to the wetlands of Winkworth Arboretum. By the lake they looked for the right size sticks to be their billy goat horns and attached them to their head bands.

Once upon a time there was a group of adventurous little forest folk-ers who spent a week deep in story land.

First they transformed into billy goats on an exciting adventure all the way to the wetlands of Winkworth Arboretum. By the lake they looked for the right size sticks to be their billy goat horns and attached them to their head bands.

This week at Little Forest Folk Winkworth our Little Forest Folk-ers have been living, breathing and in some cases… eating stories! If you heard the shrieking and squealing from London we wouldn’t be surprised - everyone has had so much fun making classic stories come alive!

This week we have had our very own hairdressing salon. This has seen our Little Forest Folk-ers having lots of fun with some hairdressing role play. We also did some chopping of some bracken that was too long in our garden. 

On a wild and windy Monday we opened the Little Forest Folk hospital where our busy doctors rushed around A&E, unloading the ambulance and attending patients.

We welcomed the children back into the forest with one of our favourite songs, Mr Clicketty Cane! We had a fun station to explore each verse of the song, resulting in lots of silly fun. We washed our face with orange juice using orange water and scrubbed our reflections in the mirror. The children ‘cleaned their teeth’ with 'bubblegum' with the help of some pink oobleck and our lovely big teeth set.

Clapping and Tapping,  Wiggling and Jiggling, Drumming and Humming in the Forest

There was dancing, music, fairy lights, disco ball, a drum and bass stage (with all the pots and pans to bang out some progressive beats), a dance tent featuring techno nursery rhymes with DJ Lenny Pearce and kids waving foam sticks with flashing lights inside! 

The little ones used our digital cameras to snap pictures of our forest. They made beautiful compositions out of loose parts and even dressed up for a portrait shot in our photo booth!

This week in the forest we have been focusing on experiencing the natural materials in the Arboretum and seeing what we can make with them.

What lovely adventures we have been on at Little Forest Folk Winkworth this week, we have even been to France on the Eurostar! Tickets at the ready!

Later in the week we had an exciting trip on the Hogwarts Express all the way to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The little ones attended potions class and mixed up all sorts of interesting concoctions. They made magic wands in charms class, sculpted ferocious gargoyles for the Whomping Willow and chased down the golden snitch on our own  top of the range Nimbus 2000.

What an emotional rollercoaster we’ve been having in the forest this week!