Signs of Spring in February!
It's been another lovely week in the forest. Such a mild winter this year, we've been enjoying some relatively warm weather meaning the signs of Spring are starting to appear in our forest very early.
All about risk. We've talked about risk and what constitutes danger, then have had child led walks around our forest putting danger signs on anything the children deem dangerous before racing to the very exciting 'danger alarm' station and banging furiously on our hanging saucepans to alert our friends to potential danger!
We've learned about the items considered risky within our site and armed with our clipboards and our checklists we've then gone on excursions outside of our site to practice finding rubbish, animals etc and learned how to deal with these risks. We've discussed the importance of wearing gloves when working with risky objects and have tried some on for size.
Danger Danger *Bangs pots and Pans in Histerics* :-)
Topsy & Tim's 'Safety First' was a favourite story this week and led us into discussing road safety. The children chose road safety symbols to paint which led into a funny face painting session where the children wanted road signs on their faces!
In addition to our focus on risk, we've enjoyed a lot of water and mud play this week. There's little in the world that engages a child more than water and mud play! We've poured, we've scooped, we've swished, we've channeled and we've used the mud to create little mud creatures to hide on tree logs around the forest!
Every day of course our Little Forest Folk who don't like to sit still have climbed, run, and created imaginary worlds on top of the trees. They've wanted to spend lots of time building so we've watched and sometimes helped this week to build log swings, dens and lovely little houses. Which we've then risk assessed ;-)
Our Little Forest Folk Chefs busy baking
Finally for our cookery lesson this week the children used their fine motor skills to pull the leaves from thyme sprigs in preparation for baking cauliflower, leek and cheddar gratin, followed by a delicious sugar free fruit crumble - yum!
In the news
Our exciting news this week is that we have announced a date for our Wandsworth Little Forest Folk open day. If you'd like to come and see how the first sister site to Wimbledon is going to operate, please feel free to drop in on Friday 26th February at the Naturescope centre on Wandsworth Common between 10am-4pm. On hand will be Lil (manager), Leanna & Lisa in addition to the rest of 'Team Aussie' ready to tell you all about how the new site will run.
Full details and how to book in for a information session: Wandsworth Little Forest Folk open day
Next week in the forest
Next week in the forest we are going to be continuing our discussions about risk, risk management & how to keep safe in the forest, at home & when out & about. Rather than dictating to the children the different types of danger we will be involving the children in discussions about what constitutes danger & what we can do to manage risk.
We shall be encouraging the children to help us complete our risk assessments next week so we shall be interested to see how diligent they are ;-). There are few better ways to ensure children stay safe than to empower them with the ability to independently assess risk. Apologies in advance if they come home & boss you about regarding safety!
Menu
Our children have this week devoured... see our menu
Enjoy your weekend and we look forward to lots more fun next week!
Read more about our concept and the benefits of outdoor play