We returned to the forest feeling refreshed and excited for the new year after a restful holiday with our families. We exchanged wonderful stories of what we did over the holidays and how much fun we had spending time with our friends and families. Some of the children told stories of their fantastic adventures visiting other countries and experiencing how other cultures celebrate Christmas. Other children shared stories of how much fun they had spending their holidays with grandparents, aunts and uncles, and cousins. They enjoyed the trip to get to their families’ homes with tales of fun train journeys, and games they played in the car. Best of all, we excitedly talked about the gifts we received from our loved ones and how grateful we are for them.
When we arrived at the forest, we were amazed to see how different it looked since we were away. Everything was put away and the forest looked a bit empty. Everyone pitched in and helped set up a new area of the forest for us to explore in the next few months. We helped put the tarps up to keep us nice and dry when the rain comes. We had eagle eyed children help clear the forest floor by picking up small branches that had fallen during the storm. We took turns raking leaves and the children who were feeling strong worked together to carry the crates and planks to make our eating benches. We also put our brand-new rainbow ribbons up together. We were all very proud of how well we all worked together as a team to make the Foxes area ready for the new term.
Once we had everything set up, we explored our new area with lots of fun activities. We had a scavenger hunt where we learned about the plants that grow around our space. We especially admired the holly trees and talked about how important our rule of “No picking and no licking is”. While the berries looked lovely, we learned that they are not good for us to eat but how much birds love to eat them. We also found the wood mushrooms very interesting and we took turns peering at them with our magnifying glass to see the patterns on the edge in much closer detail. We also decided that these mushrooms are not to be eaten and we will leave them for the insects to snack on instead.
We are looking forward to seeing what new things we’ll learn in the forest this year and we’re so glad we’re already off to a fantastic start. We’ll be back next time with more stories of our adventures in the forest.
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham