Our Week in the Forest...
Our majestic Plane tree continues to shake off her golden crown as she steps into the dressing room to redress in preparation for her winter reign. Something magical has been happening with what she has cast to the ground. The leaves this week have inspired so much fun and joy as children have used them in so many ways. At the start of the week the pallet den was home to a group of children who thought it could do with a refurbishment. The jars of paint were carried away from the forest art studio by these DIY enthusiasts and they began to give the den a fresh lick of paint. Soon it had walls of purple and blue with streaks of orange. Some children decided to go one step further and they pressed some of the Plane tree leaves on the wall, painted over it and carefully pulled the leaf off to see the shape that had been left underneath. It was clear that the home decorations where influenced by the natural landscape in which the house sat.
The next day, the house was installed with a 'leaf shower'. This involved large groups of children helping Hannah and Kate fill large buckets with leaves and scream "leaf shower!" as the buckets where poured over them, faces of glee shining out through the cascade of leaves. One child even said "Hang on! Where's the shampoo?" and so what followed was lots of imaginary lathering and rinsing.
This fascination with ‘cascading’ climaxed late in the week when the children asked to go onto the grasslands to collect more leaves from the mountain that was growing at the tree's feet. Someone had the idea to fetch the parachute and so began a team project of filling buckets and emptying them onto the top of the parachute and wait for it… to be pulled into the air and shaken! Leaves jumped and danced before falling down over the children and some even ran under the parachute to knock the leaves from underneath to help make them jump free. Some children even laid down and waited for the leaves to fall over them, only to then jump out of the bed of leaves with a ferocious roar!
Calmly, in the midst of this, sat Lizzie with trays of leaves, balls of wool and scissors, and some children appreciated her support in making leaf necklaces. These beautiful pieces of jewellery were worn so proudly we think the Plane tree had second thoughts about what she had cast away all too quickly! Lizzie was not the only one helping children get creative this week, Miranda was on hand with her balls of string for children who wanted to turn their sticks into toys for their small world play. Soon children were running around with aeroplanes, trains and even a taxi! A group of children had requested playdough so Virginia built upon the children's love of cooking to help them make their very own sensory creation. They made their dough with flour and water, and dyed it with beetroot juice and scented it with turmeric milk. This activity was a sensory explosion with lots of permission to tinker and invent at its heart.
We hope you have warm, cosy weekends with lots of leaf fun. If any of you get to see Frozen 2 that gets released this weekend, Xiao can't wait to hear about it next week (just no plot spoilers)!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham