To keep our learning rich and connected, we continued exploring shapes and patterns. The children created delicious “ice cream” patterns with scoops of raspberry and lemon flavours. They also crafted colourful caterpillars, carefully arranging patterns to challenge their growing maths skills. Our older children heading off to school were especially engaged, showing confidence and pride in their creations.

Children fashioned their own ice lollies out of clay, forming love heart shapes with either their hands or a cookie cutter. They used a branch as a lolly stick and pretended to lick their yummy creations. In true forest nursery style, it’s always wonderful to see the play potential of a simple stick and other natural treasures! 🪵 

We started off our week with a fantastic new arrival to the forest, Misty the Canoe 🛶. Our adventurers were so excited for this new resource & they spent the whole week sailing across oceans to different countries & continents 🗺️. With each country they sailed to, it gave us the opportunity to talk in more detail about where we had travelled, which helped us learn more about different cultures. 

Our Little Forest Folk-ers were busy making eco-friendly choices too! After reading 'Why Do We Need Bees?' they were inspired to create tiny bee habitat starters using recycled toilet rolls. The children loved the idea of helping our buzzing friends and proudly placed their creations around Putney Heath, hoping some local bees might move in soon.

Our sensory tuff tray included farm animals stuck in mud and we had to clean and wash them, which delighted our younger children. The ice play kept us cool and the straw and grass play allowed us to feel the dry and rustling texture of the hay, all whilst exploring the different smells as we sniffed them.

On Monday, the children explored what would float and what would sink using some items provided by the educators and more that were found around camp. The warm weather also gave our educators quality time to talk about why we need to be careful in the sun and why we need more water breaks built into our day - some of the children can even now be heard calling ‘water break’ before the adults! 

At Wimbledon, our hottest activities of the day are our walk into and out of the forest, due to the lack of tree canopy walking across the meadows, but we did not fret, as our amazing educators set up cooling activities to take part in from the get go!

We have had lots of busy tasks for busy hands this week as we have focused on using tools, building hand strength and exploring different materials.

We’ve been diving into literacy with lots of enthusiasm. The children have been practicing letter formation through name writing, taking pride in recognising and writing the letters that make up their names. Our older children also engaged in phonics play, linking initial letter sounds with familiar words. It’s been a great way to develop early reading and writing confidence in a playful and meaningful way.

On Tuesday, Earth day itself, they did a special ocean clean-up activity. We had shells and sea creatures in our blue tray. 🐟🐠🐡 However, could you see these? No, because the tray was so polluted! There was murky water, plastic and even food waste. However, soon the water was clear enough thanks to our fabulous little explorers!

The current education system is too focussed on qualifications at the expense of broader aims. 94% of respondents favour urgent complete or partial reform of GCSEs. (HMC report)

This week our management team at Little Forest Folk attended a lecture by Simon Sinek called ‘The Infinite Game’. Simon Sinek is an organisational consultant who gives inspiring and motivational talks on a subject dear to our hearts – leadership. 

It’s a challenging thing in today’s society to trust your children to develop when they are ready. Amidst NCT groups there is always much talk about when a baby starts walking, when they are potty trained, with some families feeling the pressure to achieve a goal by a certain age or time, rather than when the child is developmentally ready.

Today is my son’s last day at Little Forest Folk. He will be returning for holiday camps but today is his last official day as a daily member of the nursery community. 

You may have seen that Little Forest Folk Chiswick recently had an Ofsted inspection, grading us as Outstanding, in which the inspector commented ‘Children thrive in this nursery. They gain a superb understanding of early literacy and mathematical skills’.

We are so fortunate in our forest nurseries to have a high adult to child ratio that allows us to fully embrace ‘in the moment’ planning.

Today is a bitter sweet day for me. It’s my last baby’s first day in the forest. It’s a good reminder of how difficult settling in can be. Not for the children but for the parents.

There’s a saying that a goldfish will only grow to the size of the bowl it is confined to, whereas a fish in the ocean surrounded by space, freedom and the wonders of the natural world can grow to its full capacity.

As part of a recent parent survey, we asked parents if they could change one thing about Little Forest Folk, what would it be? The vast majority responded ‘nothing’, which is always lovely to hear.

There were however a small group of parents who responded with ‘do some learning’.

Following the announcement of our Queen’s award in April, we are delighted to share an article written about Little Forest Folk by a journalist who visited us in May.

Following our being selected by Tatler as being one of the finest nurseries in the nation last month, we are now delighted to share with you an article written about Little Forest Folk by a journalist who visited us in our Wimbledon setting a few weeks ago.

Well, this weekend was the long awaited Nursery World Awards! It was a fabulous event and we were delighted to be recognised in such a large industry such as the early years to be one of the industry leaders.

‘Wouldn’t we all secretly like to be Little Forest Folk?' We are incredibly excited and proud to be included once again in the prestigious annual Tatler Nurseries Guide.

We have some exciting news to share with you. It’s been difficult to keep quiet about this achievement as we were inspected just over 10 days ago at Little Forest Folk Fulham…

We are delighted to have won the Nursery World Awards 2016 award for Online and Social Media. We see our website and social media as more than an opportunity to tell parents about our setting...

We are delighted to announce details of our third Little Forest Folk site....

From October our fantastic team will be bringing our magical experience to Fulham. Our children will spend all day playing in the beauty and wonder that is Fulham Palace Gardens. 

We are delighted to have been recognised by Tatler as one of the 'finest nurseries in the nation' in 'The Tatler Nurseries Guide 2016'