Our Week in the Forest...
What a joy it has been this week to have blue skies, sunshine and crisp cold wintery weather. The mud has had a chance to drain and our interest in snow drops and shadows has been one of the major activities this week. The back of our forest area has a plethora of bulbs popping up and as a new site we have no idea yet what will bloom. We think we have snow drops, crocuses, blue bells and possibly hyacinths bursting through the leaf litter and soft soil. The sunshine at the beginning of the week has meant that the children have been re-acquainted with their shadows and have had fun creating hand shadows on the toilet walls as well as watching their shadows run, crouch, jump, play etc.
Our imagination and creativity has flourished with the introduction of pastel coloured chalks and rainbow coloured wool. Our Little Forest Folk-ers have delighted in drawing and mark making with the new medium of chalk and the lovely soft colours have transformed our pallet house, only the pallet house was a spaceship this time. The rainbow wool was wound around the space ship and strung out from the ship, creating connecting lines between trees and the ship. A small corner of our forest is now a riot of colour, which the children gravitate towards as they continue to add to their master piece.
An adventure scramble into the deeper, darker, wilder part of our forest is always a treat, as there is no set path to follow and the children feel very intrepid clambering through the over grown wilderness. On one of our adventure walks we collected big sticks, which the children chose, and once we’d made it back into the tamer section of our wilderness, we set about breaking up the big sticks into smaller more manageable pieces. Armed with wool, string and dexterous fingers, the children wanted to tie these smaller pieces of wood together to create boats, which took some time to do. Once they were completed the children marched over to our bridge, with an educator, to launch the boats down into the river and watch them sail away.
We have painted glorious art works, immersed ourselves in stories of police officers, fishermen, penguins and big feelings, and the forest has resonated with the sound of the children’s voices as we sang all our favourite songs, harmonising with the bird’s vibrant tweets and the cheerful hammering of the local wood pecker.
Have a lovely week end and we’ll see you all again next week!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham