Our Week in the Forest
On Monday, we hit the ground running… or rather, hit it with a Time Machine! We were transported back to a warm, humid land where dinosaurs ruled the Earth. The only humans in sight were our tiny explorers - and the only flashes of man made colour came from our iconic orange high-vis vests! 🌋🦺🦖🦕🌴🌱🌵⛰️🌋
It wasn’t just hot… it was prehistorically hot! Luckily, we cooled things down with some refreshing dinosaur ice play.
One of our learning intentions for our younger friends this week has been developing fine motor skills and working independently, so using tools to chip away at frozen blocks was a cracking activity! ❄️🧊🦕
For our older children, we’ve been focusing on moving with coordination - hopping, skipping, balancing... all essential skills when you're faced with a massive volcano blocking your path back to the Time Machine! 🌋
Unsurprisingly, the children scaled it with confidence and dino-mite determination!
On Thursday, the children’s dino-sized curiosity continued to erupt, so we returned to the Jurassic once again! The weather was absolutely lava-ly, perfect for another Jurassic adventure. ☀️🔥
This time there was lava everywhere and to get across it safely, the children engaged in some brilliant loose parts play. They worked together to build safe routes using planks and large materials - practising teamwork, problem-solving and one of our key weekly intentions: collaborating with others. Our Little Forest Folk-ers navigated the molten obstacle course like true survivors - way better than the dinosaurs handled that whole meteor situation! ☄️
In the afternoon, things got sensory-sational as dinosaurs stomped their way through swamps of paint, forests of leaves and grassy fields filled with sticks. It was hands-on, messy and totally tricera-top fun! 🎨🦴
On Wednesday, we hopped back into our Time Machine - but this time, we didn’t travel quite as far back. Instead, we landed in Ancient Egypt and discovered how the pharaohs moved and grooved! 🕵🏽♀️🕵🏼
We explored majestic pyramids with complex underground tombs, learning about these incredible structures and the clever ways the Egyptians used maths and even the stars to build them with perfect precision. 📐🌠
In the afternoon, we got hands-on at our Hieroglyphics Station—a brilliant way to practise fine motor skills as we channelled our inner apprentice scribes! 🪶📜
To finish our journey in style, we transformed into mini pharaohs with ancient-inspired face paint🏺🌞 👑- ready to rule our kingdoms with flair! Then we set off on an intrepid adventure walk before settling down for our evening feast (also known as afternoon snack!). 🍇🍞 🌟 It was truly a day fit for the gods! 🌟
On Thursday, we returned to the world of dinosaurs - but this time, we didn’t jump into our Time Machine! Instead, we became paleontologists and archaeologists, uncovering ancient fossils and making sense of them right here in the modern day. 🕵🏼🕵🏽♀️
We started the day with a massive dinosaur hunt 🦴🔍 to find all the hidden bones. It was tricky work, but with sharp eyes and even sharper teamwork, we uncovered them all! Using toothbrushes 🪥, special tools 🛠️ and magnifying glasses 🔎, we carefully excavated the fossils. These bones have survived millions of years 🌍 so we had to be super, super careful! 😬
Once we had found all the bones, we worked together as a team to piece them together and build a full dinosaur skeletons 🧩🦴🦖. It was a bit like doing a giant puzzle - and a bit tricky - but working together we completed it, and now it’s fit for the Natural History Museum!
In the afternoon, we found some massive footprints and explored making our own recordings using paint! 🎨👣 We reckon the Natural History Museum will probably be wanting that paperwork too! 😉
All in all, it's been a week full of learning and play! We roamed with the dinosaurs, walked like Egyptians and after a jam-packed few days, we're ready to stroll with our families - before diving back into adventure next week!
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