As we are approaching mid-September, we are starting to see new seasonal changes around us. The mornings are starting off chillier, the leaves are beginning to turn yellow and the grass is often covered with morning dew. We have had a great week in the forest, and have been enjoying the warm afternoons of the last of the summer. We started this week off with making a giant snail shape on the ground with one of our camo nets which the children loved using as a giant racetrack to run around. They pretended to be different types of racing cars including making the sound effects as they sped around the racetrack going “Vroooom”!
Role play is always popular in the forest and this week the children have enjoyed collecting wooden planks to make a pretend fire. They worked together to make a waffle shape formation with the wood, before finding some sticks to pretend to toast some marshmallows on a chilly winter’s evening. Whilst sitting around their campfire they even broke into merry song.
The children became curious in other ways that they could use planks of wood and tied a piece of rope around one to use it as a transporter. They all worked as a team to see how far they could drag it, discovering how it travelled further when more of them worked together. Transportation has been a big theme of the week and they have been enjoying filling and pulling a basket along a rope line from one end to the other.
Our Little Forest Folk-ers are always extremely active and have also enjoyed climbing and bouncing on the balancing ropes strung between the trees, being thrilled at making them go up and down like a seesaw. They have also had a great time playing in a spiders web of string drooped from branches, the strings were so long that it looked like a giant harp in the forest!
There is a little dip in the ground at our basecamp and this week the children have been interested in seeing whether or not they could jump over it. This led to further discussions about what kind of animals can jump. Teacher Jamie said “I can think of a jumping animal that begins with a K…” to which one child shouted gleefully “Kangaroo!”. They have also enjoyed role playing being different animals with the Lion King continuing to be a popular theme, enjoying being Simba, Nala and the other characters. Whilst Teacher Jamie was cast as ‘The Evil Uncle Scar’ who managed to recruit some sidekick Hyenas! Muahaha!
It is always fantastic to see the wide range of group activities that unfold throughout the week. One of the children’s favourites being making mud cakes, filling different vessels with mud and acorns, before finding some sticks to top with candles. On Wednesday, inspired by some cardboard cut outs the children decided to cook up a forest delicacy… Mud Pizzas! They used spades, shovels and their hands to pile mud (pizza dough) onto cardboard pizza bases, before adding delicious toppings including bark and acorns.
We have welcomed more new friends to the forest this week, and the children have done a super job in helping to settle them into our forest routine. We’ve particularly enjoyed listening to lots of stories together, with “Ten little superheroes” being a favourite this week.
We hope that you all have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth