Our Week in the Forest
This week at Little Forest Folk Winkworth we’ve welcomed everyone back and been treated to snow, ice and frosty weather as well as a spot of rain! Our learning intent was to enjoy books together and for the children to start to join in and retell familiar and well loved stories and rhymes in the correct sequence.
Our Little Forest Folk-ers settled back pretty quickly into the routine after the Christmas break, getting togged up in all their layers to go outside in the chilly weather. They had a great deal of fun using sticks to make marks and patterns in the frost on Monday, as well as looking at the ice crystals through a magnifying glass. It’s amazing how curious they are and the rich language that they express when looking at something new and exciting like ice. When we got too chilly we came inside to enjoy Goldilocks and the Three Bears, making yummy porridge with play dough and having lots of fun taking turns to say all the bear’s lines in the story.
On Tuesday Winkworth was blanketed in a layer of beautiful fresh snow and it even snowed a few times in the day whilst we were outside too - truly a magical childhood experience. It offers such a rich sensory learning playground, prompting the children to stick their tongues out to catch snowflakes, bash ice until it breaks and crunch frozen leaves underfoot. The Polar Express train had come to a frozen stop in our garden and was the perfect place to enjoy our morning snacks. Afterwards it was fun to climb on, counting the logs each time they were stepped on, with assistance of course as the logs were sometimes a bit slippery with ice. The children also loved playing with two small world set-ups in the tuff trays - an ice rink, and a winter safari park. They then painted the snowy logs with water and chalk and cooked up sausages and shaving foam cupcakes in the snow kitchen. When we came in from the cold, we read the Polar Express together and some of the older children were able to remember and predict what came next in the story at various points.
We did a huge adventure walk on Wednesday, discovering that the Arboretum’s large lake was completely frozen and that one of our lovely educators here is an amazing ice skater and has even represented her country in competitions - wow! We wonder what other hidden talents we have amongst our amazing staff team?! We heard some geese and the children observed how few other animals were around, wondering how the fish were fairing under the ice and talking about how some animals must be sleeping because it is winter. The children were amazing at walking carefully down and back up the sometimes icy steps and the seasonal conversation continued as we spotted the first daffodils of spring popping out of the ground. We were lucky enough to have free entertainment round the corner from our cottage as some tree surgeons were using chainsaws to chop down some very large trees for the National Trust. They stopped to kindly answer all our curious and confident Little Forest Folk-er’s questions about what they were doing and even made them a few stick men and some special log stools with backs that look like little thrones. Of course, that meant Stick Man was the story of choice that we snuggled up to when we returned to the cottage for some welcome snuggly time in the afternoon.
The snow had gone by Thursday leaving a lot of ice, which, following a risk assessment, was deemed too slippery to go out in. Although we all prefer being outside as much as we can, sometimes we must simply put safety first. It didn’t spoil the fun though and we made the most of the day with train sets, a cafe, play dough and den making as well as lots and lots of stories and songs. Some favourite songs included ‘upsy down town’, ‘I had a little turtle’ and ‘I love my body’, which were a welcome change from ‘jingle bells’ which we sang a lot in December! We even co-created some stories together with the children with very unusual characters and plot twists and turns!
A magical snowy week, we look forward to more adventures next week!
Little Forest Folk
Winkworth