☀️🌿 Our Week in the Forest
This week we had a super Holiday camp week in our magical forest where old friends became guides and new friends became family.
🌳Finding Our Hidden Spot
This week brought us a beautiful surprise. The summer heat nudged us to relocate, and the forest welcomed us with open arms, just as a mother penguin wraps its little one under her wing. Tucked beneath the generous shade of Bishop's Tree, we found ourselves in a hidden corner, where curiosity sparks and imagination travels to endless possibilities. 🐧✨
And what a week to be in that special place. Our holiday campers arrived, full of lively energy, buzzing with laughter and ready to discover everything the camp had to offer. And our forest regulars? They rose to the occasion magnificently, showing their new friends around, taking them by the hand, and making sure every face wore a smile. It was a truly beautiful harmony of old friends and new one. A joy to witness. 💚
🎨Colour, Sensation & Creative Freedom
As the warmth settled over camp, children were drawn to drawing, mark-making, and the pure delight of mixing colour. What made this so special was the ownership: children chose exactly how much paint to pour, experimenting freely and noticing the results of their own decisions. Colour mixing became an act of discovery, not instruction. 🖌️
Some painted beautiful fairy houses. Some created stunning works of art all their own. And some? They painted their skin, feeling the cool, silky sensation of colour on their arms and hands, fully present in that sensory moment. There is something wonderfully freeing about that. 🌈
Over at our face painting station, patient transformations were taking place. Children became vivid butterflies, mighty animals, and Marvel heroes, one careful brushstroke at a time. Both educator and child learned the quiet art of stillness and focus, a simple but genuinely challenging collaboration. 🦋🦁
💧Pools, Puddles & A Great Experiment
As the heat rose, little minds turned to a big question: how hot must the animals be feeling? And just like that, an idea was born. We made a pool for the animals! Children each chose a toy animal and became that creature: splashing, playing, and beginning some of the most natural friendships of the week. 🐘🦒
But some explorers wanted to go further. Armed with sticks and determination, they began digging holes in the ground to make their very own natural pools for insects, for birds, for whatever creatures might need a cool drink. They dug hard, poured water in and watched, wide-eyed, as the soil drank it up almost instantly. It took many, many refills to finally hold water and every single one taught them something real about cause and effect, about the earth beneath their feet, and about what it means to keep trying. A crowd gathered. Questions flew. Science happened. 🌍🔬
🐉Dragon Trees, Sticky Resin & Ancient Wonders
Out on our adventure walk, the forest had a secret waiting. Some of the trees were weeping something golden and sticky: resin, clinging to the bark like tiny drops of amber. Children reached out carefully, touched it, smelled it, and turned it over in their minds. What was it? Why was it there? 🌲
And then someone wondered… maybe… dragons?
What if the stories about dragons aren't just stories? What if something really is trapped inside these very trees? Suddenly every eye was fixed on the Dragon Tree and one by one, children climbed aboard and flew. Far away from the almost-deserted park, away on the wings of a dragon that had been waiting there, patient and magnificent, all along. 🐉✨
We also stopped to wonder at the holes: in the ground, in the bark, and asked together which animals might have made them, which creatures might call them home. Coming close to the small mysteries of nature is one of the finest things the forest offers. 🕳️🦔
🪄Clay Wands, Smashed Ice & Barefoot Grass
Back at camp, magic was being made, quite literally. Children shaped clay into wands, each one unique, each one carrying a quiet whisper: say the word, and you'll become an animal. 🦊🐺
Then came one of the week's most deliciously satisfying moments: smashing colourful ice with hammers! Brilliant frozen blocks cracked and scattered into cool, sparkling pieces and hidden inside were tiny water animals, finally released to flow free. The laughter was tremendous. 🔨🧊
And for the simplest, most grounding sensation of all: bare feet on grass. Children walked slowly across the grassy field, feeling the sun-warmed earth, the soft, uneven ground, the slight tickle of each blade, and then cooled off in the water tray, that glorious contrast of warm and cool underfoot. There are few things that feel more like freedom. 🌿👣
📚Reading Corners, Building & Cosy Spaces
Our book corner stood steady all week like a wise old friend, always there, always welcoming. Little readers settled in with stories, tracing pictures, sounding out letters, exploring what words and images together can open up. We love seeing children disappear happily into a book. 📖
Indoors, our cosy tepee house became a hub of imaginative play, while the building corner was busy from morning to afternoon: blocks, magnetic shapes, and whatever else could be recruited into the construction effort. Shelters, towers, bridges and dens. Every builder had a vision worth building. 🏗️🫖
🌿Closing up
This was a week of shade and sunshine in equal measure, of familiar faces and fresh ones, of quiet sensory moments and great bursting joy. The forest held us all: our existing children, growing into their role as guides and friends, and our holiday campers, who brought with them a spark of energy and wonder that lit up every corner of camp. 💚
From dragon trees to clay wands, from painted faces to natural pools, from sticky resin to bare feet on grass. This week reminded us, as the forest always does, that the world is endlessly worth exploring. 🌈
We are so glad you were part of it. See you in the next adventure. 🌟🌿
Little Forest Folk
Fulham