Our Week in the Forest...
After crisp, misty mornings, the warming winter sun managed to break through the trees into the Little Forest Folk camps during the afternoons. It has been a great week for observing changes in the weather and the effects that this has on our body. The children have been busy noticing small details of the natural wonders around them as we have enjoyed taking long adventure walks in the forest this week.
Energy and morale levels remained high on the adventure walks, with those with slightly littler feet managing to walk further and further without getting tired! Mud splats and wellies lost to the ooze were no deterrent for the children and in true Little Forest Folk style, many waterproofs suffered a severe change of colour. The children counted spiky ‘hedgehog’ mounds, observed rainbow colours in water drops, said ‘hello!’ to some horses and collected pinecones. We have seen some brilliant fishing and crocodile spotting in puddles this week and the children were intrigued by the ice that had layered over.
After studying some facts about them, there has been some serious determination to hunt for moles this week – many holes were dug! The children were curious to see what different woodland animals looked like and requested what they’d like to see next. Recently, a game that everyone has enjoyed playing is ‘guess the animal’ and there have been some ‘animals’ that have given us a run for our money.
“WALK THE PLANK” provided a happy chorus as pirate ships were imagined, toy dinosaurs were used as props to represent parrots and of course the hunt for treasure was ever feverish. At Paradise, the children decided to create their own treasures and painted special, “beautiful” stones and pieces of bark that they had found, experimenting with different colours.
Efforts to communicate haven’t gone unnoticed as we have heard our younger children using their words more frequently to express their emotions, they are forever growing in confidence and it’s lovely to see them forming new bonds and making new friendships amongst our Little Forest Folk-ers.
Have a lovely weekend, let’s hope it stays bright! We are looking forward to new discoveries and observations next week.
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth