Our Week in the Forest...
This week the forest has been so full of giggles and excitement and it’s been great to be part of!
Each day we have enjoyed using our metal detector to see what hides just below the soil in our base camp and the children talked excitedly about what they thought they might find. Mainly, we found rusty old nails, screws and some old cans and talked to the children about the importance of taking care with these items and how, same as when we find glass, it must be an educator who picks it up. The best find was a rusty old key that made us think if there’s a key, surely there must be a box we can open and if there’s a box we can open surely there will be treasure inside! On one of our morning adventures at the Common, we also found an old wine bottle that was tangled under some tree roots. We didn’t ever manage to fully dig it out despite returning there throughout the week to continue our excavation, however the children were convinced that the map inside the bottle would surely lead to a treasure chest that would be opened by our rusty old key.
Our morning adventures have been a real treat for our holiday campers as we explored different parts of the Common and ‘the bridges’ have been an area they’ve requested to go back to. On the way there, we looked out for different types of plants and trees and encouraged the children to be aware of their surroundings. Often it can be so easy to walk through the forest without really noticing anything. We want to encourage the children to be inquisitive and observant, so we stop regularly on our adventures and ask the children to find something they find interesting; some will find sticks, others will choose stones while most of the children will bring leaves or bark. It doesn’t really matter what they find, the point is for them to look more closely at their surroundings and see the things they may otherwise have missed.
With lots of lovely sunshine, we’ve also been interested in shadows. The children have made puppets out of sticks and leaves, which they then used in stories or to aid their role-play. The sun also made us think about ice-cream and everybody who came to watch a show at the ‘forest cinema’ gave orders and bought a variety of cones and tubs. This theme filtered through into the days we had our picnic lunch where the wraps were folded in such a way that they looked like ice-cream cones, before being filled with veggies. Most children may have felt rather short changed being given an ‘ice cream cone’ filled with veggies, but not our lot – they gobbled up everything asking for seconds and thirds!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we cannot wait to see what next week brings!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth