Our Week in the Forest
This week marked the first week of the summer holidays - school's out and the vibes are in! 🌞 While our full-timers kept the fun rolling, we also welcomed a whole camp-load of new holiday adventurers. And what better way to kick things off than with a festival? It's already summer - but we were ready to turn up the volume! 🔊🎉
The weather was pitch-perfect - no wellies needed! (Though let’s be honest, they’re a festival staple, so we wouldn’t have been booting them out!)
We had a tie-dye station that was totally dye-namic - perfect for completing that festival look! 🎨✨ Our music set-up was rocking, with instruments everywhere and even a “DJ” station - if a Bluetooth speaker and some Danny Go tunes count, we’re calling it a set! 🎶🕺
And let’s not forget our food truck-style mud kitchen, which was grill-iant - cranking out crowd-pleasers all day long. From snacks to main acts, it served up buns of fun! 🍔
Festivals are super summery - but so are summer sports! ⚽ With the Women’s Euros on our minds, we kicked off the day with a football-themed celebration. Everyone was buzzing with excitement… well, almost everyone. Let’s just say Maria wasn’t quite ready to tackle the topic. Lo siento Maria, lo siento!
We had a full match set-up! For those less keen on playing, we created a VIP spectator zone on the climbing frame - perfect for kicking back and catching all the action from above. 👀
But the fun didn’t stop there! Our merch station was the place to score major style points, featuring handmade team jewellery crafted from found items - very on brand for team Little Forest Folk FC!
And of course, the mud kitchen was on the ball, serving up delicious bandstand snacks all day. Anyone fancy a foot-ball-long sub? Or maybe some half-time hamburgers?
On Wednesday, we traded land for sea - or the seven seas, to be exact 🌊. A good deal, if you ask us! We set sail with a pirate-themed day and it truly stole the show (though thankfully, not the treasure! ⚱️👑🔱🏴☠️).
The kids had a blast - a cannon blast 💥 - taking turns and showing incredible consideration for one another. They made an amazing crew - no need for educators to jump in with a "Look at me, I’m the captain now!" moment. It was a perfect match for one of our learning intentions this week for our older children: collaborating with others!
Our second focus - developing gross motor skills like hooping, balancing and standing on one leg - was also a ship-shape match. Walking the plank on one leg? Nailed it! ⚓
On Thursday, a storm warning tried to rain on our parade - literally! ⛈️ With a weather warning in place, we took shelter in our cosy education centre. But luckily, the storm couldn’t dampen our fun. After all, as we regularly sing, "rain is part of the weather" ....and we love all types of weather! ☔🌈
Indoors turned out to be the perfect opportunity to get snug in our cosy teepee, surrounded by blankets and books 📚🧸. We had craft activities galore, including tie-dye and a dragon-themed mark-making activity - because nothing says cosy like a bit of fantasy escapism! 🐉✨
There was also a threading station with big beads for our younger children and some teeny-tiny fiddly ones for those ready for a challenge. It took patience and resilience not to get frustrated when things got a bit fiddly - but everyone gave it a brilliant go! 🧵 Perfect for one of our key learning intentions this week for our younger children: developing fine motor skills! 🎯
Finally, on Friday we swapped gross motor skills for grocery skills with our very own farm shop set-up! 🥕🛒 While the baked goods were freshly delivered every few minutes from the mud kitchen (talk about service! 🧁🍞), the fresh produce was straight from the garden - locally grown and lovingly picked.
After a week of festivals, football and fun, a farm market filled with summer treats felt like the perfect way to round out our first week of summer camp celebrations. And let’s not forget the mid-week storm warning - if that’s not quintessential British summer, we don’t know what is! 🌦️🇬🇧
All in all, it was a brilliant week and we can’t wait to see what next week has in store. Hopefully, it’s as well-stocked as our farm shop! 🌽✨
Little Forest Folk
Fulham