A wise man once said, "Spring is nature's way of saying, 'Let's Party!’ ". With the flowers blooming, the bunnies hopping, our Little Forest Folk-ers and Holiday Campers got the party started and it's been another fun filled week in the forest.
As we’ve headed in to the second week of the Easter holidays, we've been joined by both new and familiar faces, who have both enjoyed their time in the forest with great zeal. Some of our children were joined by their older siblings, much to their delight. According to a recent study "sibling relationships promote empathy, prosocial behaviour and academic achievement", and we saw this on more than one occasion in the Red Group at the log circle, with siblings moving places so that their friend could sit next to their younger brother or sister. The older Campers have been doing some great sharing with the younger children. As well as showing off their literacy skills and mathematical knowledge during reading time or during the “Swing Olympics”.
The "Swing Olympics" developed during an exercise in turn taking and the tree swing has been a big attraction for the past couple of weeks. This week the children have enjoyed counting their swings so that roughly everyone had the same amount of time on the swing. It was a good learning opportunity in counting into the hundreds and long addition, with a leader-board at the end and a discussion around ordinal numbers like first, second, third and fourth. The Green Group have greatly been enjoying focussing on balancing on the slackline. The slackline also became a trampoline as Green Group definitely got the party going bouncing up and down!
Green Team have also found a brand-new spot to explore, whilst out on their adventure walks, they discovered a steep clay slope. The children enjoyed climbing up it and building a dam at the bottom in the hope of rain to create an almighty mud slide! Other building masterpieces this week include Red Groups Pirate ship at the Bowling Club, which has sparked a whole week of treasure hunting and Pirate role-play. Sparkles found on the forest floor, interestingly shaped rocks painted by fairies, gold coins and legendary stick swords became coveted pirate treasure. Unfortunately, should any of these go missing on adventure walks, the fairies would claim them as woodland tax but more treasure was always found with the help of a magnetic fishing rod, sucking treasure up from the sea of soil.
With the warmer weather, water play has been making a fond return. Green Groups metal urn has been getting lots of use as children enjoyed filling it with water so that the spout would start to pour. Red Group have also been enjoying creating a stream down the slope, prompting their imaginations to run wild and encouraging even more role play.
The party is always in full swing at everyone's favourite ‘Sunny Hill’, with both groups loving visiting it and rolling and running down it. With snail shell and treasure hunting being at the top of the list of party games, we know that the time for dancing in the sunny Spring weather is upon us. With lockdown restrictions easing, happy children and burgeoning flora and fauna, "Let's Party!" seems to be the sentiment of the week. We hope you all have wonderful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth