Our week in the forest
We are back from the holidays! We are super happy to be back to find those little faces smiling at us. We spent circle time this week talking about all our wonderful presents and experiences over the holidays. Most of our children were very excited to tell us where they had been and who they visited on Christmas day. We heard that some of our children even travelled overseas during the festive period and it was exciting for us all to hear about what type of transportation they had used to travel.
This week, we set up at a different area, one that was full of hills and trees and closer to the rivers for lots of exciting excursions. The children were so engaged in exploring the different environment. We found a hidden shelter that the children loved role playing in. They pretended that the shelter was the castle and fought away the nasty dragons! Lots of imaginative play this week.
The hills have also been a big hit as we’ve had them right at our feet in our new basecamp area. The practitioners and children all enjoyed rolling down and running up the hills trying to race one another.
We also spent some time this week making beautiful wands, we collected sticks and then used our forest tools to change the shape of the sticks into magical wands. We also used peelers and saws to create make sure each wand was unique. We then added decorations to our wands to make them even more magical and flamboyant. But it wasn't just wands we were making this week as some of our little explorers preferred to make fishing rods and visited the river to go fishing.
Chiswick park will be celebrating the Chinese New Year with a lantern festival. We went for walks around the park to see what we could find. The children’s favourite lantern was a panda bear that is next to the cafe. They also liked the boats on both sides of the river and the knights with the horses. One area had a scene with kings and warriors. The children used their imaginations to make up exciting stories about the characters and even came up with their own funny endings.
On Thursday, everything was frozen, sticks, leaves and even the river! We went for a morning walk to warm up and we found a beautiful frosted field where we decided to play a game of football. We took the time to watch the seagulls standing on the ice on top of the river and our ever observant children noticed that there were no ducks on the river, only seagulls.
We took some tiny stones to throw on the ice and watched the ice crack. It also created amazing sounds by the vibration of the ice sledding along the river.
Reminders
Our Term dates for the year are up on our website and here for the year, please do pop these in your diary.
What to wear
Hatley have kindly offered to give Little Forest Folk families a 15% discount in store on fully priced items. They stock some great fleeces, thermals and snow boots. Just let them know that your little one attends Little Forest Folk to receive the discount.
Check out our recommended winter kit list.
Team update
We are delighted to be welcoming Kellie into the forest this week.
Kellie is joining us in the forest on part-time basis and will be in every day until 2pm. Kellie has previously worked as a Deputy Manager and has taught in both private nurseries and schools. Kellie is extremely passionate about the outdoors and excited to be joining us in the forest.
If you haven't already met, please do come and say hi!
We hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick