It’s been another fun-packed week in the forest!
Finally, it appears that spring is here. Our Forest Folk-ers have done so well to get through some very cold and very wet days (not to mention two major storms). Finally, the forest can begin to come to life again. We are already seeing beautiful daffodils, crocuses and snowdrops popping up to colour our site. We have also seen the first few bees paying us a visit to collect their pollen and nectar. With the beekeepers next door, our forest is a popular destination to buzz off to!
This week we have been focusing on celebrating the achievements of women in accordance with ‘International Women’s Day’ which was celebrated around the world on Tuesday. As so many of our children are dino-mad, we decided to explore the life of Mary Anning, one of the first palaeontologists. After reading some fun facts about her discoveries, the children used a salt dough recipe to create their own fossils. Once they had mixed the ingredients, it was rolled out and divided amongst the group. Then the children chose a small-world dinosaur to stomp into the dough making large footprints. We left these to dry and the next day we were impressed with how convincing they were.
Another woman we learnt about was Jane Austen. Despite being a forest school, literacy and storytelling is a big part of what we do. You may have already heard your child talking about Miranda’s famous clock stories at snack time. Libby kindly shared a book from her own library about Jane’s life and the next day we set up a writer’s desk for budding Jane Austen’s. One child began writing a story about a ‘Cat Queen.’ For all those children going to school in September, now is the time to really encourage using a pen or pencil to form recognisable letters. A good place to start is always with their own name or the first initial of a sibling.
Space has continued to be a strong interest for many of our children. On Monday some of the group built a ‘space train’ using the crates and wooden planks. Once aboard, the adults watched as they zoomed off into space. Luckily, they were all back in time for lunch! We have been putting aside lots of large boxes and plastic bottles to create space stations and rockets. There is still lots of interest in a school visit to the NASA space station.
With the weather very mild and sunny on Thursday afternoon, Miranda kindly allowed us to use her real adult-sized guitar to unwind with some relaxing acoustic sounds. The children loved learning how to make sounds using the guitar strings and observing the different sounds you can make. One child even sang us the ‘ABC’ song while strumming away on the guitar. This activity proved so popular we will be getting the guitar out again!
With spring on its way, we as a team want to re-energise our efforts towards maintaining our status as an eco-school. This will mean plenty of planting, litter-picking, recycling, and caring for our environment. If you have any items, you would like to donate or have ideas you’d like to suggest as to how we could implement an eco-positive approach please let us know.
In imaginary play, many of our Forest Folk-ers have taken on the role of witches and there is often a poisonous witches’ brew being concocted for the adults to drink. On Thursday we had a visit from the ‘Stinky Witches’ who really smelt and really disliked humans. Their potion was the slinkiest of all and sent all the staff to sleep in an instant!
Taking inspiration from last week’s visit from a local dentist, we set up a roleplay area for doctors and nurses. There were plenty of patients lined up for a check-up at ‘Twickenham Surgery’ and the children had fun with the dressing-up costumes and doctor’s bag. Each patient had to sign their name in and check the appointments list to make sure they arrived at the right time.
Have a lovely weekend everyone! Make the most of local parks to explore the changes visible in our local environment. See you all next week!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham