Our Week in the Forest...
We’ve had a lovely, wet week in the forest, with lots of puddle splashing joy and opportunities for wet play. We were even surprised with snow on Thursday morning, and the children tried to catch the snowflakes on their tongues! On our morning adventure walks this week, the children were busy observing and discussing the flow of water as it trickled down the slopes, providing a great opportunity to talk about the water-cycle. There were many more treasures pocketed, including special shiny pebbles that had been washed up by the water. The final stretch of one of the adventure walks was to walk across the ‘dinosaur river’, a small dipped stream that had appeared in the rain.
Some of the children were further intrigued by nature when flicking through the ‘Collins Complete Guide to British Animals’. They pointed out the different animals they knew with excitement and we looked at the distribution map for each animal to see whereabouts they live and whether they might be on Wimbledon Common! Looking at this guide also gave us the chance to talk about what an index is, as some of our Little Forest Folk-ers wanted to read about animals of particular interest to them in the book.
Keeping warm and active has been a key focus this week as we have experienced some colder spells. The children were busy running from tree to tree at forest base-camp. There were also races to catch tennis balls and to locate certain coloured plates. The Lion King is remaining a popular theme with the children; at Paradise our Little Forest Folk-ers have been busy running away from ‘Zazu’ (an educator) who wanted to take the animals (the children) back to Pride Rock. The children enjoyed selecting which animal they wanted to be and we had some interesting ‘stinger-rays’ who ‘stung’ poor Zazu whenever they came near!
There has been more imaginative play at Paradise as some wooden steps were laid down and reinvented as a racing car that could seat multiple children. Our Little Forest Folk-ers zoomed away with their steering wheels in their hands. With Spring approaching, Paradise is beginning to bud and bloom. The children noticed the small purple flowers that have made an appearance on the rosemary bush. Some of them were interested in the smell of the herbs and rubbed their fingers on the rosemary, sage and bay leaves, observing the scent that was left on their fingers.
The children have also been engaged in maths and literacy-based activities this week. One of the activities encouraged them to observe the shape of different letters, they looked at the alphabet and words like ‘sapling’, and then matched up the letters and sounded them out. An Elasti-cube was brought into the forest this week and our Little Forest Folk-ers enjoyed pulling the cubes into different imaginative shapes; navigating space and rotating them. There were some super-speedy fingers that turned the cube into a flat pattern very quickly once they had figured out the knack!
On one of the adventure walks, there was a peaceful moment of contemplation as the children took part in ‘the gratitude game’. Here, while sitting next to the lake and observing the wildlife, the children were asked to discuss with their friends what they are grateful for. There were some really thoughtful responses, such as “I’m grateful for the forest” and “I’m grateful for my house”. Finally, we were very grateful for some delicious PJ Mask cupcakes that were brought in for a birthday this week and had been excitedly received as a long-awaited treat at the end of the day! PJ Masks is continually a popular role-play theme in the forest.
We hope you all have happy weekends. See you in the forest again next week – we’ve been glad to see everyone’s faces again after the half term week away!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth