Our Week in the Forest
As the forest gradually cools down for the last weeks of this lovely and warm summer, we are finally having a respite at Fulham Palace Gardens and its wonderful surroundings. After a very busy and vibrant couple of weeks full of sunshine, we are enjoying a quiet and peaceful time where we can appreciate in detail the small things that bring us joy and make our experience outdoors unforgettable and meaningful.
Every morning during this week, our children have noticed the first signs of late summer and early autumn: little green oval nuts that start to come out of their spiky shells and spread over the ground on our way to camp. We found the first stage of acorns! We also perceived the wind rustling the leaves on the trees. Relaxing nature sounds invited us to cosy up and make the most of our last warm days of the year. And what better finale to this bright season than celebrating our endless imagination by creating stories and exploring every corner of our creativity?
This week, we created secret and cosy dens to make storytime a magical and memorable experience. We even opened our Forest Theatre, where children dressed up as unicorns, butterflies, bumble bees, pirates and intrepid explorers!. We expanded our creative ideas when going on adventure walks, as our little explorers found natural dens in trees, such as under the biggest and oldest branches or behind twined tree trunks. Suddenly, our children turned into scary and fierce dragons, whilst we told stories inspired by the most fantastic scenes in the forest.
There is no good story without music, so we had our musical instruments every day this week at camp. We brought some Hawaiian summer vibes and learnt how to play the ukulele with our musician educator, Dan. With the speaker on, we played our favourite songs and used logs and stumps as drums. Some children followed the rhythm using drumsticks and shakers, whilst others sang along to the most popular nursery rhymes. We also used stumps as chairs, so we played musical stumps to the rhythm of some requested songs such as Hello Kitty and The Beetles!
Our Expressive Arts and Design skills don't end here. We have been exploring painting every day in a meaningful way. Our little artists let their imagination run wild and expressed their creative ideas in the most wonderful pictures. From sparkling planets to a rocky landscape full of colourful mountains, our children reflected their imaginative worlds through amazing pictures.
On top of that, we had our daily face paint sessions where our Little Forest Folk-ers made their choices and turned into the most fantastic creatures we've ever seen: magical and glittery dragons, hybrid creatures such as half a dragon and half a tiger, a scary but lovely Gruffalo, roaring tigers and an adorable bunny.
Another fabulous week, we hope you all have a great weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham