Stunning Autumn
Our week in the forest
“Autumn carries more gold in its pocket than all the other seasons.”
This week we have experienced Autumn first hand, with the forest being doused in leaves and light of warm copper, butterscotch, marigold and honey colours. Our base camp was covered with a golden carpet of leaves, which the children took great joy in stomping through, especially when the breeze picked up and ‘snowed leaves’ onto us.
The changing seasons are always a hot topic among our Little Forest Folk, as they notice new colourings of the leaves, trees becoming bare and the beginnings of fog and frost in the mornings.
As well as having discussions and making observations about Autumn, we visited the pumpkin display in the walled garden, and learned that pumpkins can come in many different shapes, colours and sizes. We talked about uses for a pumpkin aside from carving, and even had delicious pumpkin soup one day for lunch – delicious.
Our children showed us just how creative they are when they found 101 uses for a simple rope. We created games (chasing, jump rope, tug-of-war), role played – the rope was a river, a giant worm, a pirate’s plank, and we thought outside the box using the rope as a boundary for our imaginary park.
Little Forest Heroes
The children discussed what they thought should be built inside our park, and we constructed a mountain, a rock café, a swimming pool and a museum – plus the park came with it’s very own park ranger!
We see a lot of creative and imaginary play occurring in the forest, as the environment itself offers plenty of space, uninterrupted time, and open ended resources which spark children’s imaginations and ideas.
Manuel set up a wiggly worm hunt for the children, placing short pieces of coloured string randomly around the forest and seeing how many ‘wiggly worms’ the children could collect. This activity saw the children really focus on their environment and surroundings by looking up trees, behind logs, in tall grass and under stones to try and find all the worms!
Not only did we find wiggly worms this week at Fulham, but spotted that the Bishops Tree was covered in ladybirds! There were hundreds of them, in all different colours and patterns. We spent quite some time discussing where they had come from, and why they were here.
Stunning Autumn
Care and empathy are two life skills which are fostered at Little Forest Folk, and the children are becoming incredibly compassionate young people, ensuring each person, plant and animal in the forest are looked after. One afternoon when we were packing up, the children donned superhero capes to become our Little Forest Heroes and ensured we hadn’t left any rubbish behind!
In the news
We hope that you all had the chance to see Little Forest Folk Wimbledon appearing on ITV London news on Thursday! It was very exciting to be asked to show off what we do, and explain why the concept of full time outdoor education and care is so beneficial to children.
Next week in the forest
We will be extending on the children’s imaginary play through storytelling and our Forest Puppet Theatre. As a continuation of the theme 'knowing my forest', we will also be discussing animals, as we had a number of squirrel visitors this week, several birds and the resident Fulham Palace cat even strolled past for a visit!
Reminders
All parents should have access to their child’s Tapestry account – this is where we upload snaps of the day and observations. Parents are encouraged to upload their own observations from the weekend or anything of note which happens away from the forest. This is a great way for us to continue bridging the gap between home and Little Forest Folk, and getting to know the child’s current interests and skills outside of the forest. If you have any questions about Tapestry, don’t hesitate to speak with one of the team.
After school activities
Our evening activities at Cuckoo Hibou will commence on Wednesday next week.
Tuesday Cookery (starts the following week)
Wednesday Coding
Thursday Disco!
Parents Evening will be held next Monday 31st October
Places are limited so please book online (see our email for details).