What a fun and exciting week it has been in the forest!
We have had a very creative and adventurous week, filled with smiles and laughter in the bright sunshine. The children have had so much enjoyment from creating different pieces of art and construction of which they have added to throughout the week. They have loved being able to share their creations with each other and work on adding different things using everyone’s ideas. The teamwork in the forest is always one of the most important things that our children learn and take away with them.
One of the amazing things our bunny group made this week was a village for fairies and goblins. Thinking about what was around them that they could use, the children decided that a log was best to use as the main house. From there, they added different features to the village and the house, acorns for the paths and twigs to make fences. There was also a vegetable patch made from fallen blackberries which the children said was needed for the fairies to be able to eat. Our children worked together trying to work out which would be the best things to use and each item had a reason to be chosen. They then added parts to it as the week went on, that’s if the cheeky foxes didn’t knock it down over night!
The children in fox group also had a lot of thoughts about smaller creatures of our forest. Whilst digging out the stream through our mud kitchen, our children had an encounter with a frog and her baby. They made sure to carefully move around as to not disturb the frogs too much, but so that everyone was able to have a look. Our children love learning about the different creatures we have in the forest and having a look at the different colours and patterns they have on them. There is always something new for them to learn and the children enjoy sharing these with their friends and educators.
Not only have we been looking at frogs, but also birds this week. Maria brought in a bird whistle and the children had the chance to see what birds would come if they heard the call. This led to discussions on different types of birds and how birds have different calls themselves. The children also spent some time learning the names of different birds.
One of the big activities this week has been using the amazing natural resources around us to make wonderful pieces of art. They used sticks and leaves and stuck them onto pieces of card, creating different patterns and images. Some of the children added paint and drew with pens to give the creation extra impact. Some of our children wanted to make forest masks and so cut out eyes and mouths from the card and decorated them as they wanted. They ran around the meadow with their masks on, adding noises and movements to each character they had created.
Watching our children work together to create something is one of the most amazing parts of being in the forest. They are so good at turn-taking and teamwork, which will allow them to form strong social bonds.
“Individually, we are one tree. Together, we are a forest.”
We hope you all have wonderful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon