Our Week in the Forest...
This week the children have tackled the cold with reckless abandon; it hasn’t fazed them in the slightest! To make sure the children have stayed safe and warm, we’ve had on offer lots of active activities for them to do. The older children love to chase the educators, and it’s been great to see some of our younger Little Forest Folk-ers try to keep up.
Manoeuvring around logs and tree stumps can be quite tricky, never mind doing it when you’re two years old, added to the fact you’re wearing wellies and on top of that running over muddy ground. Our youngest children are having their physical development tested to the maximum simply moving around the forest, so we think those who want to have a go at keeping up with the older children are just incredible.
One of the brilliant things about a child-led approach, the style of education we are so passionate about, is that children don’t consider their play to be learning, they just consider it to be play. Little do they know they are building the foundations for the literacy, science, maths, PSHE, and more that they will go on to do at school.
One of the things that has been most popular this week has been our planks in the forest. These were most often used as a road or train track, but without knowing it, the children were forming concepts of shape and size. Deciding how they wanted their track to look before finding the planks with the correct dimensions to fulfil that plan.
At Paradise we covered the picnic tables in fabric and let the children go wild. By using sticks, paint brushes and their fingers, they were developing the muscles needed for being able to hold a pencil and write. We’ve been on adventures around the Common and each time they voted for which path to go down, they were forming a basic understanding of democracy and everyone having a say.
The cold hasn’t stopped us from having a great week and those who were with us prior to September showed how hardy they are and that they can be great role models, encouraging the younger children to wear hats and gloves and getting them to run around if they started to feel cold. We have such a lovely mix of children in the forest right now, and despite the odd tantrum or occasional tears, we count ourselves so fortunate to be able to lead these children along their learning journey and onto their next phase of life.
Have a wonderful weekend and we will see you all next week!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth