Our Week in the Forest...
Merry Christmas everyone! It has been a wonderful year in the forest, full of fun and joy and it has been a real privilege for all of us to see your children grow and develop. There have been magical experiences that have really impacted on us as teachers and that have hopefully been life changing for your children too! We would like to say a huge thank you for all of your support, kindness and generosity. And most of all for bringing us your wonderful and lovely children to play with!
It has been a week of stories and mystery, searching and exploring. At Paradise we arrived to a giant catapult on Monday and the children worked as a team to fling and collect the ball. Technically it was a challenge to be able to let go of the ball with both hands at the same time! And some of the children showed the dexterity to succeed. The chalkboard to mark the scores was a magnet and the children gathered round to discuss . In the afternoon the children developed their play on the Goldilocks theme and after role-playing the story decided it was time for some stern letters to be written to Goldilocks where a good ticking off was in order! And so started the children’s fascination with letter writing- a theme which has continued all week!
On Tuesday morning, nestled in the branches of a tree, the children found a giant envelope addressed to “The Little Forest Folk’. With squeals of excitement the discussions began- Who could it be from? What does it say? We started to look at the letters and read it out loud. It was from Little Red Riding Hood! We found out that the Big Bad Wolf had taken Grandma and she needed our help to find her. As a team we went searching around the forest. “Are they in the tent?” NO! “Are they hiding in the bushes?” NO! “I can see a tail!” We found a cavity in a tree which we found was Grandma’s house, who is going to be inside? Is it Grandma?. “No the Big Bad Wolf has eaten Grandma! Now he’s going to eat us, RUN!” The children spent the next 2 hours playing hide and seek from the Big Bad Wolf. The tie between our improvised play and stories has been the theme of the week and the children have been really enthusiastic about being involved in the stories that they know.
The children are really showing their understanding of the boundaries set when going on forest adventure walks. This is fantastic for us as teachers to be able to give the children the freedom to explore the world around them on their own. The teamwork that they have shown this week is really exciting for the New Year, being able to work with each other is an invaluable life skill and all of the children are showing the ability to do it! Thank you again and goodbye to Josh for all the wonderful work he has done with LFF Wandsworth - Pob lwc yn y dyfodol!
We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and look forward to many more adventures in 2018!
Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth