It’s been yet another fun and muddy week in the forest for us Foxes! We’ve been so lucky to see so much wildlife, it’s been a BIG spotting week, we’ve seen sleeping ducks on our walks along the river, as well as a European gold finch, and we had a wonderful experience getting super close to the Grey Heron that lives nearby on our walk to pick up point! We spotted him finding worms for his tea, and he showed us how long his wings are as he flew away! Exploring in base camp we also discovered some animal tracks in the mud and kept looking out for the bunnies living in the brambles. On our adventures walks this week, we have been loving adventuring further than we’ve been before, finding new places to explore, the children found gaps in the holly bushes where we were looking for ‘gorillas in the forest!’. It’s wonderful to see the children’s imaginations developing so beautifully, as well as their care for their friends, foxes always look out for one another!
One of our literacy activities this week was to invite the children to make letters out of sticks. They used wire to bend them to the right shape and found other children who have the same letters in their name. We also opened a Forest cafe, making teas and coffees for each other using our favourite ingredient (mud!!) The children have been a great help using the big shovel to clear paths for the water to run and make our own little rivers and helping our mud kitchen, so the water runs off site when we are finished playing with it.
Some of our children have been at home this week, but that doesn’t mean the forest can’t still reach them. We have been doing daily group zoom calls including a variety of different activities as well as reading stories and singing songs. We have had different educators from our group on each call, meaning the children have still been able to connect with all the educators in their group. They have also been able to see their friends in each call and share their activities with them.
We have had a group who read stories, sang songs and played dancing games. These got all the children up and moving to release some energy and show off their amazing dance moves. We had another zoom call where Hannah made nature playdough there and then with the children, adding all the ingredients in as they went which meant that they could also work on their counting as they made the fun playdough. They children were then asked to use anything they could find, whether it was some leaves their garden or some pasta shells from their cupboard, to decorate their playdough with. We had some amazing creations!
Then the next group had the chance to make nature frames with Kai, and he did a step by step tutorial on how to make a frame from card which the children could then decorate however they liked. They were using their fine motor skills but cutting the card themselves, and then used their counting skills again when they added all of their products decorations on.
Thursdays group had story time with Marina and then they all drew their favourite part from the story. The children all sat and listened intently, taking on board everything that they heard. At the end they all showed their friends their pictures. We had whales and snails, and some children even drew the forest that we love so much.
Finally, Friday’s zoom involved an at home scavenger hunt with Imogen. The children had a list of different things that they could find from around their home and could tick it off a list. Then the last thing was to find their favourite toy and talk to their friends about it, encouraging their independence and confidence by talking about something that they liked by themselves.
Although it’s been a different kind of week, both our children and our educators have shown what amazing people they are by joining in with all of these activities and their friends. Making sure we keep in touch is an important message at the moment, and our children have done so well with that this week!
We hope you all have wonderful weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon