This week in the forest has seen children learning all about National Children’s Day. It feels like every day is children’s day in our forest, but this gave us a chance to work alongside the children as they thought and discussed what it means to be a child and what children need.
The foxes wanted to start the week by making babies and children of their own. Kate was on hand to help the children make their own paper children/chains of paper dolls. The children discussed what their children needed, and it was a unanimous decision that the first thing they would need would be clothes! The first generation of paper children had beautiful clothes drawn straight on them using crayons, pencils, felt tip pens and of course – mud! As the children extended and built upon their ideas as the week progressed, they accessed books of fabric swatches and soon the dolls had haute couture outfits in a range of animal print fabrics and shades of suede. “What else would your children need?” asked Kate as she admired the amazing dressmaking skills of our Little Forest Folk-ers. “PLAY TIME” roared the children and with that, the paper dolls were enrolled and inducted to the best play opportunities Twickenham had to offer. The children showed them the mud kitchen and the dolls bore witness to lemonades, scrummy food and potions being concocted, the dolls sat inside children’s hoods as the children climbed to show the dolls a view of the forest from above the forest floor, they accompanied the children on adventure walks into the back part of our forest and enjoyed many a story – snuggled up with their human companions.
It still remains the educators favourite thing when children take these activities and their ideas suddenly take the play and learning in a different direction. One boy was really looking at his paper child, turning it around in his hands and then suggested his child looked a bit like a gingerbread person. This led to him telling the story to his friends with great memory and attention to detail. “Can we make gingerbread children?” asked the children and with that, Kate had donned her superhero cape, flew around Waitrose for golden syrup, ginger and edible decorations.
There were lots of eager helpers all wanting to take turns to pour rivers of amber coloured syrups into mixing bowls, stirring in butter, spices, ginger (both fresh and ground) and flour before rolling out the dough and using the gingerbread man cutters to cut out their biscuit creations ready to go in the oven. Prue Leith and Paul Hollywood would have been handing out handshakes left, right and centre before declaring all the children as star bakers!
The Foxes were not alone in wanting to make food as a means of celebrating National Children’s Day – the Parakeets started their week wanting to use the vegan marshmallows that had been gifted to them. One child tried to describe a treat he had tasted that featured marshmallows and Rice Crispies mixed together. Miranda was hot on her toes – getting her hands on some baking ingredients before the Foxes used everything would mean moving quick as a flash and she galloped down the meadow, jumping clear over picnic tables, raided the kitchen and was back in the middle of a circle of children all desperate to help cook within minutes!
The parakeets mixed melted vegan butter, Rice Crispies and melted vegan marshmallows before pouring the aromatic concoction into a baking tray and placing in the fridge to set. Each child in the parakeets took home an individually wrapped treat to enjoy!
Rosa noticed the mud kitchen being used as a lemonade factory in the children’s play and so she too put on a superhero’s cape, sourced a selection of juicy lemons and gave the children a first-hand experience of making their own lemonade! The lemons were cut and squeezed (a very sensory experience) and mixed the juice with ratios of water and sugar and the children experimented with tasting it hot and cold and describing how the flavour changed.
If all the raindrops were morsels of gingerbread, fresh lemonade and Rice Crispie Squares, oh what a rain that would be! We hope you have a lovely weekend (it is Stir Up Sunday so good luck to parents and children who will be making up their Christmas Puddings ready to be stored away till the 25th December) and we look forward to more adventures next week!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham