Our Week in the Forest...
Excitement swirled in the cold forest this week when Father Christmas brought us a present to keep us warm! A heater for the dome! The wood burner will provide us with some respite during the winter months, and allow the children somewhere to warm up and participate in some quiet, focussed play and learning.
Our forest obstacle course has continued to grow this week and the children have loved helping Sam add more to it and thinking of ways to make it more challenging. This week we added more wooden pallets as ramps to climb up and down. The children have gathered daily to participate in challenging their bodies physically and supporting their friends as they guide each other through the course. We love to see how the children have gained confidence in their ability – going from needing support from an educator to wanting to try independently.
The ropes have been out and used in several different ways this week. The children love to use the ropes and come up with so many different play scenarios for them. Some of the children this week made armour for themselves, tying their ropes to sticks and small branches. Other children were desperate to learn to tie knots. Knot tying is quite tricky for their little hands, but practice and try as they might, they get closer and closer to their goals.
Together we put up some tents this week using tarps. Our Little Forest Folk-ers love to hide away and use these spaces in their play scenarios. I particularly loved this week seeing the children use the tent as a castle and the elaborate play scene of dragons and princesses. Throughout the day the structure of course lost some stability, but that was fine as the children took responsibility for hammering pegs back in and using branches to steady their castle. The more they worked on their castle, the more important it became and the more invested the children were in their play. It was a pleasure to observe!
With lots of hot chocolates, adventure walks, tree climbing, puddle jumping and mud play this week, the children have been busy bees around the forest. We look forward to lots more fun next week and the endless opportunities the forest presents us!
“The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination” Albert Einstein
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon