Hope you’ve had a great week. As usual our forest has been a hive of activity and our Forest Folk-ers have been having lots of outdoor fun!
This week we have begun in earnest to discuss with our new children aspects of Little Forest Folk that are special, for example our desire to look after the environment. With that being said, Xiao has furnished the forest with new colour-coded recycling bins, allowing the children to learn about the various types of materials that can be recycled. They have enjoyed the responsibility of sorting our rubbish into the correct bins and using the litter pickers to keep our environment tidy.
We have also been utilising the natural resources available to us in our wonderful forest and surrounding area by going on an autumn leaf hunt, making autumn rainbows and threading with conkers. For the leaf hunt, the children were given cards with various colours on them and asked to stick the corresponding leaf next to it. This was a great opportunity for our younger children to begin to use colour-based language and to start recognising primary colours. In decorating our autumn rainbows, the children painted using only brown, yellow and green. During the threading activity, they got the chance to practice their fine motor skills by threading string through conkers that had holes in. Some children said they had made necklaces or decorations for the forest.
Dens and makeshift houses have been springing up all over our site this week. On Tuesday we even had a living room made up using bedsheets, pillows, chairs, books and a cardboard television. The children loved acting out watching their favourite tv shows in bed. Nothing beats a duvet day, right? Some of the dens were required in order to hide from the big bad wolf that is still stalking the forest and has yet to be caught. No wolf is a match for the impressive dens our Forest Folk-ers can construct with crates, planks, rope and pallets.
As the colder days are upon us the children spent this week building a new and improved bug hotel to provide a nice shelter for all our creepy crawlies. After stacking the pallets on top of each other, our adventurers filled in the gaps with plastic flower pots, circular logs and bamboo sticks. This activity has built on the interest resulting from our wormery which the children enjoy monitoring for signs of change. So far the hotel has proved a pleasant resting place for one of our robins.
Little builders were seen on site working hard using the wheelbarrow and spades to collect sand from the front entrance. After placing it in a tuff tray we all had lots of fun constructing sandcastles using plant pots, water and sand. One child asked for more water to be added in order to make a moat. This led to a discussion about what a moat was and later a staff member helped them make a drawbridge. Some of the group were interested to learn about what a drawbridge was. Parents, don’t forget to look out for some of the wonderful Halloween events taking place at local heritage sites. As a recommendation Eltham Palace with its still intact moat and ancient bridge makes an excellent family day out! See there link here.
Sometimes the simplest activities provide the most amount of pleasure. This was the case when our Forest Folk-ers began collecting the seeds from our giant plane tree and tying a water pipe at an angle began rolling them down from the top. Cries of laughter were heard across the forest as they watched the seeds tumble out of the bottom at great speeds.
Have a great weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham