Our week in the forest
What another exciting week we have had here in the forest with the children embracing their creative minds, exploring their interests and thirst for knowledge.
Starting our week with a dance party to ‘Shake Your Sillies Out’ is such an exciting time and of course, we can’t forget to include one of our beloved all time favourites, ‘The Floor is Lava’. During circle time we listened to one another sharing the adventures of what we did during the bank holiday. Our little adventurers showed great enthusiasm and discussion when making a bug hotel together. When they were asked what was needed to make the bug hotel they collectively began to gather leaves and twigs then carefully layered them on top of one another. As soon as our bug hotel opened, the local residents decided to stay the night. We watched the caterpillar and woodlice having some food then wiggling themselves down to settle for the night.
We did things a little bit differently on Wednesday with our friends getting ready at the clubhouse to go explore the wilderness to see what discoveries were waiting for us at the ponds. When we reached the ponds, not only did we see a variety of ducks but we also saw three goslings that were grey and yellow in colour, as well as other ducklings. We needed to make sure we were extra careful when feeding the ducks oats not to scare the duck families. We took the longer route back and made an awesome discovery; another pond. This pond didn’t have ducks in but instead it has loads of tadpoles which inspired a discussion of the cycle of frogs. We spent the afternoon at a slower pace, continuing listening to music, making different bugs out of playdough, painting on natural materials and reading all about bugs.
At the end of another fun-filled week we gradually took a slower pace, but our creativity never stopped for one moment. Focusing on our fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination and keeping ourselves safe, we used the scissors to cut out leaves and other food items to restock the shelves in our Bug Cafe. As we used cardboard, we had to make sure we cleared all of our rubbish using the litter picker grippers once the cafe was closed to maintain our well-loved space and animals around us. Our Little Forest Folk-ers showed off their awesome dance skills again throughout the day by using the coloured scarves as a dance prop with not just our adventurers singing throughout but also our educators!
As it is David Attenborough’s 100th birthday today, we all wished him a Happy Birthday and had a lot of discussion and deep meaningful conversation around how important the world is, especially explaining the importance of needing to look after and protect our planet!
Have a lovely weekend and we cannot wait to have more adventures and more laughs next week!
Little Forest Folk
Putney Heath