Our Week in the Forest
The clock is ticking and we have started to count the days to welcome the most wonderful season of the year in the forest! Indeed, everything is beginning to look a lot like winter – a silent forest greets every morning, creating a peaceful, calm atmosphere. We walk, run & hop with our warm layers and waterproofs on and... let it snow! This week, we spotted the first snowflakes of the season and watched the icy puddles form. Cosy beanies and fluffy gloves are our pretend fur, for fun and for actual warmth!. ❄️🏂🧤🐻🌿
Did you hear that? The absence of foliage and insects lets us hear the most chatty early birds chirping from bare trees more clearly than ever. Can you smell that? A very comforting and earthy smell of burning wood from the gardener's place brings back nostalgic feelings of cosy warmth. Cold weather brings us together, teaches us resilience and brings out our best. We gather around pretend campfires, share our feelings and shake it off. We love holding our extra-warm cups before tasting comfort soup that gives us energy to keep as active and curious as robins before they go back to roost. 🪺🪶🦜🪵🍜
This week, we turned our camp into a busy wonderland of role-play and physical activities to keep ourselves nice and warm. We pretended to be doctors and nurses in the A&E department and Urgent Care Centre. Our helpful children worked together to care for patients with various injuries. They used the doctor kit and learnt new vocabulary such as stethoscope, syringe, bandage and prescription. At the same time, our chemists and pharmacists created natural remedies and medicine in the mud kitchen! 🏥👩⚕️👨⚕️🩺
And because there is no such thing as bad weather, we put our helmets on top of our beanies and pretended to be builders on a bustling work-in-progress camp! Our Little Forest Folk-ers especially loved using our battery-powered drill to unscrew the screws from the pallets as well as our hammers, they nailed it!. From the biggest, both girls and boys, to the little ones, absolutely everybody loved this fun role-play that kept our bodies moving all day – climbing the scaffolding frame, transporting logs and bricks and, of course, making cement in the mud kitchen! Our children were Subject Mud Experts! 👷👷♀️🧱🏗️⚒️
Our attentive Little Forest Folk-ers not only know the secret of perfect layering that keeps us warm and wraps us up, but also the clues for sparkly lights and symbols we use during the merry and festive days. We snuck into the palace and went on a Christmas hunt. We spotted multiple wreaths and handmade natural decorations, such as dried oranges, cinnamon sticks and white-painted pine cones. We followed a trail of Christmas trees, which led us to the biggest and most marvellous of all, with a magic fairy on top and all types of shiny baubles. We gathered by the colourful wrapped boxes, which made us speculate on the kinds of secret gifts inside. 🎄🎁✨🧚♀️
How many more surprises will we find next week in a forest about to turn into a Winter Wonderland? We can't wait to look for them together! 🌳☃️
Little Forest Folk
Fulham