Our Week in the Forest

What a wonderful week we have had on the meadow, filled with teamwork, creativity, exploration and adventure!

We began the week by becoming “The Protectors” during our litter pick walk around the train tree meadow. Armed with litter pickers and our recycling bucket, the little ones worked together brilliantly, taking turns and even creating their own special chant and team call. Along the way, we learnt more about caring for our environment, spotted busy bees and lots of ladybirds and enjoyed seeing the immediate impact of our hard work on the meadow.

Back at base camp, some of the children continued their recent fascination with making fishing hooks, practising their knot-tying skills with great concentration and perseverance. Later in the day, we identified some of the insects we had spotted amongst the forget-me-nots and ground ivy, including a large white meadow butterfly and two buff-tailed bees.

Throughout the week, we explored early writing in a variety of exciting ways. The children used paintbrushes and their fingers to write names in flour trays before challenging themselves to write words and names in the mud using sticks as pencils.

We also enjoyed colour mixing using pipettes, carefully transporting paint between palettes before dripping and spraying it onto paper to create beautiful artwork.

On the meadow, the children explored the life cycles of frogs and butterflies through a fun jigsaw hunt with the educators. After searching high and low for puzzle pieces, the little ones worked together to sort them, discussing colours, patterns and which pieces belonged to each animal.

Creativity continued into the afternoon as some children helped paint a large pallet yellow ready for our forest rules display. While painting, we discussed our rules together and explored colour mixing further, discovering how primary colours combine to create new ones.

The imagination tree became a pirate ship later in the week as the children used cardboard creations and pirate maps to inspire imaginative adventures across the meadow. They practised positional language and directions as they sailed to exciting destinations and searched for buried treasure.

One of the highlights of the week was building a swing with the educators. The children carefully tested branches for strength, searched for the perfect stick seat and worked together to help construct it. Once complete, the little ones showed fantastic turn-taking and kindness, making sure everyone had a chance to swing and offering to push one another. Alongside this, some children planted bulbs and carefully filled pots with compost, excited to watch their plants grow over the coming weeks.

As always, the meadow was full of exploration, climbing, digging and imaginative play. It has been such a joy watching the children build confidence, strengthen friendships and immerse themselves in nature and discovery.

We hope you all have a lovely bank holiday weekend and look forward to another exciting week ahead! And to our term time friends, we cannot wait to see you after half- term!