Hello Everyone!
It’s the end of another fun-packed week in the forest. It has also been the first of what will be many more cold weeks, a challenge for both educators and children. This provides all of us with a great opportunity to build up resilience and mental strength. A crucial part of this period is dressing appropriately to meet the challenge. Please can we gently remind families to ensure your child comes in with winter waterproofs, hats, gloves, scarves, multiple layers, and warm footwear. This must be labelled to prevent their loss or misplacement, thank you.
Making the most of the autumn season our children have been exploring the forest and looking at different types of trees, branches, and leaves. On one occasion we collected sticks and branches from the forest to use to create our very own ‘Stick Man.’ We discovered that the best tree for this was the Cherry tree next to the greenhouse, which provided us with perfectly thin, straight sticks and branches that we tied together using string. One of our forest school educators took out the lopper to prune the sticks and branches into the right shape and each child had a turn with this large tool. Great fun! They then chose a leave and drew a face on it and attached this to the top for Stick Man’s head. Some did happy faces, while others drew angry faces. We are yet to discover what has made Stick Man angry!
As you may have noticed our forest is now covered in a carpet of beautiful leaves of all different sizes and colours. After helping a staff member to rake some of these into a large pile, the children then filled the wooden platform area, creating a huge bed of leaves in which to jump, lay and roll around in. Sometimes it really is the simplest ideas that bring the most pleasure! One child suggested that this bed was actually a soft play area (clearly a favourite family outing) and the group began role-playing as babies in the soft play. They even had a cafe for the parents to grab a coffee while the children played.
As the weather has been on the chilly side this week we have made sure we have been keeping warm by playing lots of circle/group games, doing plenty of dancing and moving to our favourite action songs. On game that the children loved was ‘Duck Duck Goose’ which involved sitting in a circle, with one child chosen to go round tapping the friend’s on the head (gently of course). Each time the person on it says ‘Duck’ until selecting one friend to be the goose. This child then needs to run round and prevent the person on it from sitting in their place. Very exciting and often chaotic!
The children learnt how to play ‘Simon Says’ and educators were impressed at how good the group were at playing what is quite a tricky game even for older children. Another old favourite was the game of ‘What’s the time Mr Wolf?’ which we played on the meadow allowing our children a large space in which to run away and avoid being eaten. Afterwards they enjoyed lying down in the leaves and making starfishes.
One of the most complicated action songs our Little Forest Folk-ers enjoy is ‘The Penguin Song’ involving plenty of instructions to move flippers, legs etc. However, this song is so much fun to act out and is the perfect one to keep everyone feeling toasty!
On the art table our children have been busy using the clay to sculpt into various different shapes and to represent lots of creatures, particularly some hissing snakes. One child said their snake had become a number four and they shaped it to represent the number. This encouraged other children to try and make numbers with the clay. We then made number one, two, three, five and six. For the younger children we introduced the language of thick and thin and spoke out how most of the group had made very thin snakes.
The children have also been using folded paper to make their very own aeroplanes (with adult assistance) and enjoyed making the most of the windy conditions to watch them fly off into the distance. After testing them out we personalised them using marker pens and ink stamps to decorate them.
Have a great weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham