The air feels crisp and chilly while the bare Plane tree watches the children enjoy its colourful leaves that have fallen all over the meadow. Everyone is feeling the excitement as we countdown to the holidays. We enjoy looking for our friend from Santa’s workshop, Ruby, who watches with a big grin as we scour the bushes and peer up at branches to find where she is hiding.

We put on our creative hats to make the forest look festive for the holidays. We started off by choosing colourful combinations of red and white, sparkly blue and red, green and purple pipe cleaners and we twisted them in tight knots to fashion them into candy canes to hang along the tarps.

Then we decided to make our forest Christmas tree. We looked around the forest to find the loveliest, twiggiest branch and put it in a spot where it can be seen from all directions. We tied ribbons around the twigs and made curly icicles to hang down from its many branches. Not quite content with our handiwork, even though it was looking very lovely, we made baubles to give it a little more pizzazz. We took some clear orbs and chose various colours of paint to pour inside. We closed them and swirled them around to make lovely patterns.

To really get into the festive spirit, we’ve been reading and telling stories. We love hearing about snowball fights, topsy turvy adventures to the North Pole, and different ways people celebrate the festive season such as Christmas and Hanukkah. Best of all, we’ve been singing and dancing to Christmas songs. We use the bells to jingle along to a classic favourite - Jingle Bells! We imagined what it would be like to play with a snowman as we learned the words to Frosty the Snowman. We also practised our counting with the 5 Little Snowmen.

It’s been very festive here in the forest this week and we’ll be back next week with more stories of how we’re getting into the festive spirit in the forest.

Little Forest Folk
Twickenham