Our Week in the Forest...
After attending Trisha Lee's training ‘Helicopter Stories’ the forest has been alive with theatrical performances. The children have been acting out familiar roles and sharing their own stories to be scribed by the adults. It was wonderful to see one child's confidence as he stood up when the children were asked if they wanted to hear a story and said, “I will tell one!” and took centre stage within the circle to tell his own story about dragons, dinosaurs and leopards.
We also took some ideas from our physical literacy training on Monday and did a fitness session with the children in the forest. We practiced some yoga poses that developed our balance and coordination as well as some upper body weight bearing activities in order to help develop the muscles that are important for writing.
Autumn changes throughout the forest have been a source of great enjoyment for the children. On an adventure walk we had an amazing time collecting and transporting armfuls of Autumn leaves and tossing them up in the air, letting them rain down around us. We’ve used the large leaves, grass seeds and wild mushrooms in our cooking to make pasta, salad and poppy seed cakes to share with our friends. We have also spotted a lot of animals in the forest this week, including a cormorant who has been a frequent visitor on the lake, along with the heron and a terrapin, lots of spiders who have spun webs all around the forest, a lizard hiding in the grass in the meadow, a small timid field mouse and a moth who had no interest in flying away and happily let us hold him. The children’s interest and care in the creatures, both large and small touches our hearts. To see them talking to each other and whispering “you have to be quiet!” as they gently pull aside the bushes to reveal a lizard, or lie on their stomachs at a distance to watch the field mouse make a journey to and from the bushes in search of food or gently transfer a moth from one child’s hand to another so they can all see the patterns on his wings and feel the tickle of his feet on their hands.
Have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk Chiswick