At the start of our week we celebrated international dog day with a vet role playing area as the children looked after and cared for all the (toy) dogs we had in the forest. Bandages were wrapped around sore limbs and special dog food was made in the mud kitchen to help them get better. On the craft table we had paper plates which we decorated and turned into dog masks.
The children were curious about the olden days and ‘did we have cars’ and ‘did we have planes?’ So we chatted about the 1930’s and 40’s and introduced them to the Spitfire planes that flew during the war. We had some lovely drawn images of the Spitfire from various angles and we coloured them quite creatively, pink wings, blue tails, purple windows. In our loose parts zone we built a Spitfire with crates and planks and zoomed around the sky.
It is international bat night on the evening of Saturday 30th August, so we have been learning about bats. We painted autumn fallen leaves with various colours and hung them up, as the paint dried the edges of the leaves curled up resembling a hanging, sleeping, bat. We learnt about how they squeak as they fly through the night skies and find their way around.
In another section of our forest we balanced a ball on the top of a traffic cone and then armed with ping pong bats and sticks we carefully took turns hitting the ball with our sporting bats. One of our Little Forest Folk-ers is a huge baseball fan and was showing his friends how to hold the bat and follow through with a swinging motion. We definitely have some potential cricketers and tennis stars in our forest!
This week we have also enjoyed playdough, water play, musical instruments, singing and digging. As well as this, we explored a bag of treasure which was full of crystals, tigers eyes, jade, jasper, flint and shiny brooches and jewels. Holding the crystals up to our eyes we could see multiples of our friends in a kaleidoscopic collage.
As the last of our friends head off to big school (Primary school) we welcome our new settlers to the start of a new school year. Remember to always be kind and gentle and always have fun!
Little Forest Folk
Twickenham