Our Week in the Forest...
Working on the allotment and climbing on monkey bars!
After a long bank holiday weekend, the children were excited to get back to our allotment at Chiswick House! Jacki and Victoria have been taking a group of children each morning who have been monitoring the changes of our seedlings and trying to remember each day what we have planted. The children have been regularly watering the allotment and after the long hot weekend, our patch was in desperate need of replenishing. It has been lovely to see how the children have taken ownership of their gardening and the excitement each morning as the children volunteer to go!
With the educators returning back to the forest after a variety of training during inset day, we have seen some fantastic obstacles set up for our Little Forest Folk-ers in the forest. Jepha has been utilising her rope training and constructed monkey bars for the children to navigate across. The monkey bars were set up with an area about a foot off the ground which led to a section closer to the ground. This meant the educators could differentiate the tasks meeting the abilities of all our children in the forest. For those not able to hold their own body weight for too long, they were able to either dangle from one handle or practice using their hands on the handles as they tip toed along. For those more confident in holding their own weight, they were able to see how many handles they could climb across! The activity was lots of fun and unsurprisingly led to some monkey role play in the afternoon!
As spring continues and the flowers start to blossom, the children have enjoyed bug hunting and looking at which minibeasts have begun to appear in our forest. One of our favourite spots for looking at minibeasts was in the bushes along the path of the Chiswick House and Gardens car park. This location is very popular for ladybirds and allows the children to view and observe the life cycle of the ladybird over time. Over the next few weeks we would expect ladybirds to start laying their eggs, which will soon hatch into larva who feed on the leaves of the bush. The larva will then turn into pupa before finally transforming into an adult ladybird. The children are always looking out for the ladybirds when passing this bush, being very careful not to disturb their habitat. Feel free to also have a look if you're ever passing by the area!
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend and cannot wait to see what next week brings!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick