Our Week in the Forest
This week, we started our final countdown to spring, which officially starts in less than 10 days! We are all delighted to spot new early signs of the busiest and most exciting season of the year. With trees blooming, petals swirling in the air, and even a family of geese who wandered the gardens at the end of the week, the forest is more than ready and so are we! 🦆🐣🌸
We continued our Bug Hotel project and read our book of the week, Hotel for Bugs, which gave us great ideas for extending our hotel at camp. Every morning, we made the most of our walks into camp as well as our adventure walk and collected natural resources for our hotel. Some children picked fluffy and small feathers to make a soft carpet and leaves to make slides. Our little explorers chose the best spot for our holiday resort. They placed the bug hotel by one of the biggest trees, as it had to be dark and sheltered. We followed the book's great ideas that we shared at circle time and developed our own to revamp the hotel. Some children created a fabulous puddle swimming pool in between the tree roots next to the hotel and a bubbly spa in a teacup. We also made a larvae club for the youngest bugs, with a slide made from a gutter. We turned our mud kitchen into an all-you-can-eat buffet. While some prepared the most delicious mud food, others even offered room service by filling the hotel room gaps with bottomless mud balls! 🏨🫧🛁🥣
We couldn't wait to welcome all types of insects and minibeasts to the amazing hotel! We went on an adventure walk and took magnifying glasses as well as our minibeast checklist with clipboards and markers to identify different types of fantastic bugs that live nearby. We discussed where we could find them and let the children lead the walk. They took us to the darkest areas under the biggest evergreen tree canopies, where they spotted spiderwebs hidden in the most secret corners. They followed a shiny trail and wondered whether it might be a slimy slug or a snail. Some children remembered where to find more minibeasts and with some help from the educators, they lifted the oldest logs and found a whole cosy ecosystem underneath. From busy woodlice to wiggly centipedes, long millipedes and quiet slugs, they identified them in the checklists and named them all! They also knew where to find wiggly worms in the mud kitchen and the most attentive children spotted a line of busy ants marching on camp and a ladybird on the grass! 🐞🐛🐜
Not only did they show great interest in the minibeasts, but also this week our children loved pretending to be big beasts wearing fantastic masks! Most chose to be lions, cheetahs and even a cow. They drew faces of their favourite animals using colourful markers on paper plates. We helped them cut their amazing big beast designs and some of them even did it by themselves. We made two holes, threaded a string into them and suddenly, we had a pack of fiery lions, fast cheetahs, a colourful penguin and a lovely cow who joined them! Some of our Little Forest Folk-ers also enjoyed making flowers. We mixed yellow paint and PVA glue which they used to paint their paper plates with flower shapes. Then, they stuck strips or balls of tissue paper on to decorate their beautiful flowers. While they added a pipe cleaner as a stem, a honeybee came to visit us, attracted by the colourful flowers they had made! 🦁🐆🐧🐮
By the end of the week, we celebrated Mother’s and Family Day. We talked about what type of gift we should give our Mums and families. As they planned to make a card with a picture, we were on a mission to find the best area with flowers in Fulham Palace Gardens for a live drawing session. Our little adventurers took us to the front, where the loveliest patch of daffodils are. We placed two blankets and sat in front of the bright yellow flowers. Our little artists enjoyed such a calm and mindful activity while practising excellent observation and focus skills. They used yellow, green and blue markers to draw some petals, stems, grass and the sky. When we finished, we shared what we love doing the most with our Mums and families. From reading their favourite stories with Mum at bedtime to their most delicious home-made meals, they all appreciated how much they love spending time with their amazing mummies! 🌼✍️🖼️
What a wonderful end to our week! Have a lovely weekend and Happy Mother’s and Family Day! 🏠❤️✨
Little Forest Folk
Fulham