Our Week in the Forest...
Adventure Ahoy!
It’s been an action-packed week over at Wandsworth and I’m sure you’ll be ready to go below decks and hit the hammock after you hear what our Little Forest Folk have been getting up to. After not getting past the pirate page in ‘Charlie Cook’s Favourite Book’ by Julia Donaldson, our Wandsworth sites have been whipped up into a pirate frenzy! Passers-by this week must have been alarmed by the chants of ‘WALK THE PLANK’ that have been echoing through the trees as the children have cheered one another on to take treacherous risks over shark infested waters. Although one or two of our Little Forest Folk have been a little anxious about walking the plank on their own, their confidence over the week has really grown until they have been doing it all by themselves. The best bit about seeing the children challenge themselves has been seeing the big grins on their faces and hearing them cackling with glee when they fall off, quickly followed by shouts of ‘Sharks!’ to their pirate colleagues, safe aboard the ship.
Fallen trees at the Windmill site have been re-imagined as huge pirate ships, which the children have enjoyed climbing aboard, and singing ‘What shall we do with the Naughty Pirate?’ at the tops of their voices. These pirates simply cannot be stopped, when nappy changing time came we were politely informed, ‘I’m busy, I need to walk plank!’ We had to become very creative with our cries of ‘Land ahoy!’ to tempt them from their ship. On finally spying prospective islands using their telescopes, the pirates jumped ship together and our little cabin girl hearts melted to see how they ran off down the hill, holding hands and waving their pirate flag. On reaching the dried-up river bed, one pirate bravely negotiated their way across the unknown and waited on the other side of the bank. They then helped up each one of their pirate friends with a ‘Yay, you can do it!’, so that they could enjoy the treasure island together.
The Paradise Pirates revelled in getting the scissors out and working on their fine motor skills to cut and stick tape to create pirate hats, the odd pirate jumping ship altogether to start a new career as tape and paper cutter extraordinaire. They beavered away using crayons and pastels to create fierce pirate designs upon their hats. The children have had a cracking time working as teams to move planks into position for any misbehaving pirates. It has been wonderful for us to be able to stand back, in such early days of opening Wandsworth, and watch how the children are already interacting and helping one another to achieve their shared goals. They had such a brilliant time working on their bravery and risk taking to give the plank walking a bash, before deciding to move the planks into new and exciting positions for themselves.
We are so proud of how the children are already starting to support one another with the challenges they are taking on, how they are cheering achievements and lending a helping hand. We are so lucky! Have a terrific weekend, everybody, and feel safe in the hands of such brave and fearless pirates. Unless they turn on you that is…in which case, hide those planks.
Enjoy your weekend adventures!
Little Forest Folk
Wandsworth