Our Week in the Forest...
Back to the gloves. Back to the hats. Back to a cool wind nipping at our fingers and noses. Outside of the forest, people hunker down into their coats and cocoa while the Little Forest Folk laugh and jump and build and play: the best remedy for cold is action!
Play! It hasn’t been the warmest week in Fishpond Woods but the cold has not stopped our children one bit. This week has seen the children being far more physical in their play: they have put together houses and ships; lugged logs to make obstacle courses; rescued stranded friends around the forest; been on adventures; been pirates, soldiers and animals; and, as if that wasn’t enough, chased and been chased by blind giants, monsters, dinosaurs and trolls!
Practice! As with lots of skills, practice certainly makes perfect and this is entirely true in the forest as well. With the presence of obstacle courses most days, the children have really taken to completing them again and again in an effort to get from the beginning to the end with no adult or peer assistance. It is a marvel to watch how much more certain, confident and able the children get with each round on the course. What has been amazing, too, is the help that is given from one child to another to assist them round the course. A child on Friday even started his own obstacle course, teaching all those who tackled it how to get through the course, and lending a helping hand when it was needed. It’s no wonder that our children have such excellent balance, as well as great jumping skills to safely get off the end of the courses!
Poke! In two separate activities, poking, prodding and digging have been in the background of each. As some of the big forest folk have recently done some forest school training, the making of elder beads was a favourite new activity that they wanted to introduce to the children. Using important poking skills with tent pegs, the children set to work pushing and poking through the centre of short pieces of elder branches and creating a lovely hollow bead. These the children then threaded through string and made charms, necklaces and bracelets. The concentration that the children put into this activity was phenomenal, and they were all very pleased with and proud of their finished products.
Developing new skills is always fun for the children and tying string is something that is both tricky and rewarding in equal measure. Swords were very much in the forefront of the children’s play as pirates, soldiers and just themselves. But alas, Little Forest Folk Wimbledon doesn’t keep a ready arsenal for the children. So they had to make their own. Working together with the adults to tie two sticks together, the children were able to make swords of all different sizes to help them fit into whatever role they wanted to play. As a consequence, trees, hoops and leaves were poked to smithereens. As were dragons and the infamous blind giant, who lives in the woods.
Food in the forest:
Our full April menu can be found on our website HERE
Our menus will be changing next week as we head into May, see our update here.
New dinner for May:
Potato bake
Diced potatoes with creme fraiche, spinach,
lots of cheddar cheese, whole grain mustard, fresh chives and parsley.
Have a fantastic long weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon
