Our Week in the Forest...
On Monday we returned to Kew for the first time since summer began. As usual we followed the children’s direction and headed to the conservatory. When we stepped inside the children voiced their excitement at how much it looked like a forest and the adults had to agree. We found lots of lovely and unusual flowers and plants and peeked in all the tanks to see what fish and aquatic animals we could find. Sadly we couldn’t find the iguana around the edge of the pond, but did spy some of the biggest fish we had ever seen and some of the tiniest fish swimming alongside them. As we explored the park we found lots of signs which the children stopped with interest to read. We read out the names of the trees and plants and described the feel of the leaves. In particular the children loved to point out the monkey puzzle trees. We also looked at the maps of the park and the children located the conservatory on it and then talked about the route they needed to take to cross the park from where they were.
The children enjoyed fishing by the lake and collecting the ‘tiny apples’ that had fallen from the tree nearby. They counted them and compared them to pears and apples before throwing them in the muddy puddles and watching how they sunk to the bottom. We watched the swans and the coots swimming on the lake, comparing the noises of the baby coots to the other birds, and talking about how they sounded like ‘crying’. The children said that they were following their mum and crying because they were hungry. We talked about what to feed the ducks and how sticks and leaves weren’t good food and that throwing things in the lake would make the water dirty and the ducks might get sick.
This week we discovered the potential wonders of pots and pans. The children were busy cooking their own ‘pasta’ recipes using sticks to add and stir the ingredients into their pasta. Lots of pesto and cheese were added to the mixture before the delights were sampled. Before long the pots and pans had been turned upside down and the forest was filled with banging and tapping sounds as they children made their own band, although some of the pots were snuck away to be worn as helmets for protection in their forest play.
Have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk Chiswick