Hello Everyone!
It’s December already! Amazing how quickly the time goes. Our new starters in September have now almost completed their first term in the forest.
As you might expect we are now beginning to focus much of our activities around Christmas as the countdown to the 25th gathers pace.
One daily source of fun and something that captures our children’s imagination has been searching the forest for Ruby the Elf who visits Twickenham every day all the way from the North Pole. After breakfast the children gather together to hunt for the cheeky elf and discover her latest hiding place. This week she has hid in our book corner, up a tree and bizarrely, inside a glass jar by the fence next to the river. Maybe the jar was a warm shelter from the cold mornings we’ve been having. Be sure to ask your children for Ruby’s latest whereabouts.
Monday was a tremendously exciting day as our Little Forest Folk-ers battled the elements and the oddly named Storm Barra. The morning passed off without incident but by the afternoon we had to take shelter in ‘The Venue’ due to the heavy winds and torrential rain. Our children really enjoyed using this space and were particularly interested in getting the dressing-up box out and looking at themselves in the giant mirrors. They were also fascinated by the large stage at one side of the indoor space.
We always make sure to recycle boxes and large pieces of cardboard for our arts and craft activities. This week we have used these materials to draw, cut out and decorate our own Christmas trees. Many of the children have started to talk about having a real tree at home and having helped their parents to decorate it. One child also spotted what they thought was a real Christmas tree growing next door in the garden of Twickenham beekeepers. After cutting out the tree (very tricky when using cardboard) the children used coloured pens, pom poms, glittery pipe cleaners and string to give the appearance of our a festive-looking Christmas tree.
Using some fallen twigs and branches, the children helped to make some large Christmas decorations for the forest. After selecting the right sized twigs and branches the children used their paint brushes to paint them a snowy white. Once this was done, they decided where to place them in the forest and chose the area next to our mountain of fallen leaves! It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
As usual group times have been full of singing with favourites such as ‘Tiny Turtle’, ‘Skinny Malinky’ and ‘Hairy Scary Castle’ competing alongside Christmas classics such as ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘We wish you a Merry Christmas’ and ‘When Santa got stuck up the chimney.’ Miranda has also taught the group (including staff) a song about ‘Old Saint Nicholas’ which the children have enjoyed learning. Nursery rhymes and song times are always a great opportunity to introduce new words and encourage language development amongst children under five. Keep up those fine singing voices Forest Folk-ers!
Another interest of the group is our new flag poster which the children like to look at and discover the names of different countries and their greetings. This is also a time when we can introduce ideas around family, home environment and the wider world. After returning from a holiday to see relatives in Italy, one child proudly held the Italian flag aloft and we learnt that Italians greet each other with the word ‘Ciao.’ We discussed the everyday foods we eat that come from Italy and talked about the colours of the flag and which colours are our favourites.
On Thursday a group of children made some wonderful multi-coloured playdough from scratch which they loved looking at and finding interesting ways to manipulate it. One child used it to make a recognisable representation of a girl, with hair, eyes, arms, legs and fingers. Another child said they had made a volcano that was about to explode! We also watched as a large piece of playdough floated up as a rainbow hot air balloon. Great fun!
Don’t forget to wrap up warm for next week, with all clothing items clearly labelled and each child bringing in their own water bottle.
Have a lovely weekend and keep warm!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham