Our Week in the Forest
It's officially the most wonderful time of the year! This week, we started the countdown to Christmas Day and stepped into an Advent calendar in the forest. It's been a very busy start to the month, with a special focus on fine and gross motor skills through manipulative play, physical activities and, of course, Christmas crafts! 🌿❄️
On the first day of December, we turned ourselves into busy elves creating different Christmas tree decorations. We painted wooden slices, mixing colours and using paintbrushes. With assistance, our little learners drilled holes with a hand drill and then they threaded a bright green ribbon into the holes without help! 🎄🌟
The high wind warning didn't stop us making the most of the day at both our indoor site as well as inside the Palace, where we went to look for the Elf on the Shelf. We ended up finding many of them! Our little explorers enjoyed looking everywhere and spotting them in the most cheeky places - hiding on shelves, climbing one of the Christmas trees or even hanging from one of the door knobs! 🧝♀️🧝✨
We continued our walk back to camp in the forest where we daily found a giant sleigh made out of pallets as well as a post office. This time we turned ourselves into Santa’s helpers and we wrapped presents using newspaper, sticky tape and scissors. We used wooden geometric blocks as secret presents and combined them to create new shapes. 🎁🌟✨
We wrote letters to Santa and posted them in our red post box. We painted our cards using Christmas stamps. While the older children practiced writing and tracing their names, the little ones decorated their cards with colourful drawings and stickers. They all enjoyed folding their letters, putting them inside the envelopes and posting them. 💌✨🎅
Some children loved pretending to be Santa, riding the sleigh and carrying our big sack with presents. They decided to go to the North Pole and we stopped in different places such as Spain, Norway and Dubai! 🛷✈️✨
We also made Christmas wreaths using cardboard, sticky glue, newspaper, leaves and string. Our little Santa's helpers decorated them with red pom-poms and pinecones. 🌲✨
On site this week, we had core stories that we read regularly to help develop pre-formal literacy skills, such as organising and sequencing events to anticipate what will happen next, joining in with repeated refrains and experiencing rhyme and expression. For our 2 year olds, some of our core books include; Pete the Cat, Ten Little Dinosaurs, Pip and Posy: The Snowy Day and The Christmas Tree. For our 3 & 4 year olds, we have been reading; Dinosaurs Love Underpants, The Squirrels Who Squabbled, The Gruffalo, Oi Frog and Mog’s Christmas! 📚✨
Little Forest Folk
Fulham