Spring vegetables!
Spring spring spring. How amazing it is to be spending our days in glorious sunshine the way we have this week!
We've been learning all about growth and have been reading many interesting stories. We started with 'Oliver's Vegetables' and loved watching the children's independent reading and discussing with each other which vegetables are which, colours and sizes as well as noticing many other details. We also enjoyed reading 'The Gigantic Turnip', 'Jack and the Beanstalk' and many other vegetable and animal related stories. We went on a few pretend vegetable hunts inspired by our story and also discussed which of the vegetables in our stories we may be cooking with this week.
We have had lots of running, swinging and climbing this week, with a progressively more imaginative slant. Our swinging has been 'sailing ships', our climbing has been 'slithering like caterpillars', our running has involved being chased by sharks. We've hung upside down like bats and we've balanced to walk on bridges over crocodile swamps.
Running, swinging, climbing - fun!!
We've been on adventures inside and outside of our site, looking for different Spring flowers to judge which flowers are growing the quickest, which are tall, which are small. We've collected various natural materials to create nature crafts and have discovered so many new muddy puddles, mini beast homes, mushrooms growing, worm homes, a bat house and even the odd duck!
We've whitted sticks, we've sawed and we even made some keys.
We've planted wildflower seeds to grow our own little meadows. We've toasted marshmallows in the sunshine and even on Friday afternoon with torrential rain we've had incredible fun. Rain doesn't dampen spirits at Little Forest Folk, it's merely a great excuse to throw up some tarps to create water channels for rainy water play.
Rainy water play
Finally for cookery class we made tuna and a hardboiled egg salad mixed with cornichon, capers and anchovies and served it with a delicious sweetcorn and cheddar cornbread.
News
Due to poor O2 service of late Vicky has changed her telephone number to switch to another service provider. Please update your phones to Vicky's new number.
We've had a few questions this week about what to do if your children are sick and cannot make it into their scheduled day at Little Forest Folk. In this situation we'd be grateful if you could please call or text Vicky on the number detailed above.
Due to the popularity of our Thursday cookery class, we are planning to take advantage of the delay to our Wandsworth opening and add a temporary cookery class on a Wednesday. We look forward to teaching another group of our lovely children all about healthy and delicious foods we can make together.
Another new addition to the Little Forest Folk this week is Fiona, who joins us as an early years teacher from Melbourne. She will bring a wealth of experience to the team and we look forward to welcoming her into the forest.
Finally, now that the mud has started to dry up a little on the main path into the forest, we have been able to move our benches closer to the bridge. This is simply to give us that little bit of extra security by being further away from the car park. Now that the ground is less muddy underfoot it will be easier for you all to walk a little further to collect the children in the afternoons.
Dressing for the weather
We have had several children this week a bit overheated in their layers. On warmer days we do now request that you don't put their thermal layers or double fleece layers on. Apart from today, the entire week this week has been on the warmer side and we've been peeling layers off overheated children. As ever, we'd prefer you to be prepared in case of colder weather but maybe you could consider on the warm days popping the extra 'just in case' layers into their backpacks so they don't get overheated on the walk in.
As a guideline this week the children should be wearing:
- ONE pair of comfortable trousers (jogging bottoms or leggings)
- A long sleeve t-shirt
- ONE Thick fleecy zip up jacket
- One pair of socks
- Wellies
We'd like for Spring to recommend warm wellies. These wellies are neoprene based which makes them extremely flexible for easy running in, plus they have great grips and are much warmer than standard wellies so we highly recommend them.
Next week in the forest
Next week in the forest we are going to be talking further about sizes and growth. We will be looking at the different sizes and types of flowers, extending into talking about flower fairies. We will be making miniature Spring gardens, will be finger painting blossom paintings and will be making little fairy houses and villages in which to engage in some creative and small world play.
We are excited to begin our adventures again in the forest next week. Until then, have a lovely weekend.
Little Forest Folk
