Our Week in the Forest...
What a fabulous, merry and joyous week we have had in the forest. We have weathered a variety of weather, but oblivious to all of that the children have happily got on with all their chosen activities. Some of our Little Forest Folk-ers have enjoyed pretending to be space men and women and they’ve asked to have long shiny purple and red lengths of wool attached to their coats and the pallet house to keep them tethered to their spaceship as they floated through space. They moved in a floaty like motion about the mud kitchen and obstacle course area before floating back towards the pallet house. Then the wool was snipped and they zoomed off, racing around and pretending that they couldn’t get back to their space ship. This activity led to a myriad of questions about outer space in general, floating in space, breathing and is it hot in space etc.
Some of our younger children are enjoying our lush green, dim, natural den made of ivy and have been having tea parties and play dates in there while forming lovely little friendships. A lot of giggling and chatting has been going on in the den, which has rung round the forest and been a delight to hear.
We have hung a shiny, old dustbin lid in our wilderness area and this is our fox alarm. If the local fox passes through a corner of our camp we ring the alarm by banging the dustbin lid with sticks. The alarm has been very popular with all the children both as an alarm and a percussion instrument. We are developing a good sense of rhythm and musical movement to a number of our songs. Baa baa black sheep is a good starter tune with a steady beat.
One of our ongoing larger projects has been the erection and recycling of one of the Little Forest Folk Christmas party trees in our heartland, carefully propped up and tethered to a neighbouring tree, the children then wanted to decorate it. We removed all the shop bought baubles as we wanted to have a more natural look. Thoughtfully gathering various lengths and sizes of sticks, the children’s choices have been purely their own, carefully choosing lengths of wool they started to create Christmas tree decorations. Twisting, tying, wrapping and knotting the wool around the twigs and sticks, the beauty and variety of decorations has been amazing and the children have been so proud of their accomplishments as they have tenderly hung them on the tree and returned to the craft area to make another.
We have also had an abundance of slim, bendy, willowy, type sticks on site and we have enjoyed poking and pushing the sticks into the soft mud either side of one of our paths and creating a child sized tunnel. The children have worked together and managed with a little help to tie the top of the twigs together to create the tunnel. They added wool for decoration and then the paint was requested and the tunnel was lathered in oranges, yellows and red. It is an amazing site to see.
Thank you all for coming to forest school this week and this year, it has been a delight to have you all here, Mr Foxy and Clara will miss you all while you’re at home.
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you from all of us.
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham