Walking in a Winter Wonderland
We could not believe our luck when we came into the forest on Monday morning. The snow still covered the forest floor and was settled on the trees. The sun shone on the glistening snow, and the blue sky made for the perfect start to our week. The children were so excited to come in, full of stories about their own snow adventures at home and were looking forward to creating more snowy memories in the forest!
The snow took most of our attention at the beginning of the week with the children all thinking of different ways we could play in it. We made snow families, with smaller snowmen being the children and then the bigger ones being the Mums and Dads. The children found little stones and sticks that were hidden under the snow to add features to their snowmen. We had little stone eyes and twig arms, we also used leaves on some of them.
Our children also loved using our hill on the meadow to sledge down. Some of our children found a tyre and with the help of our educators, tied a rope around it to pull the tyre down. Everyone took it in turn to go on the tyre and go down the hill as fast as they could. Some of the children found that certain bits of the meadow were too bumpy and wanted to work out how we could make it easier to go down. They used tools around to help flatten the ground, making their turn smoother.
The cold weather also made the forest perfect for some experiments. As all the puddles had frozen, the children had the chance to see if they could crack the ice. Some of them even took it one step further and found bits of ice that they could pick up and see how long they would stay frozen for. They put them on a surface and kept checking on them at different points in the day. The children asked questions as to why some of the bits of ice took longer to melt and we had discussions about the thickness affecting how quickly it will melt. It was great to see the children so engaged in these little activities which were so fun and all we used were the things the forest gave us.
When the snow finally left us, our children were still full of fun ideas and games to play. We have really been enjoying songs and music this week, with some of our children even creating a band! They took it in turns to choose a song to sing and some of them used the logs around us as drums. We found that different sized logs made different sounds, so having a variety was fun! We also had some of the children just using the sticks on their own and realising that if you tap the sticks together, they can make a good sound too!
The forest is magical throughout the year, constantly changing and offering up exciting possibilities, but seeing it picture perfect and covered in white was such an amazing sight. It just shows you how amazing nature is and how lucky we are to be able to experience everything it has to show us at Little Forest Folk!
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and see you next week!
Little Forest Folk
Wimbledon