Our Week in the Forest...
It has been another delightful week in the forest with our Little Forest Folk who have experienced all the seasons in this one week, giving them the opportunity to explore and play in landscapes that are transformed from one day to the next. From mild summer days to cold torrential downpours the children have negotiated new environments daily and even hourly, but perhaps the greatest result of the weather has been the return of our most favourite muddy puddles! The return of sticky mud has allowed the mud kitchen to be in full swing, with a great variety of cakes, soups and other muddy foods being cooked, baked and prepared. Some children even decided to use the mud as a form of clay or other sculptural material and began to decorate our trees with eyes and other features.
With the recent rainfall the children have been instinctively drawn to the muddy areas in our forest and their language has become so rich in describing their experiences of this squelchy, sloppy, sploshy, gooey, slimey, sticky, messy substance.
The children have been experiencing mud in all its glory throughout the week, discussing how it sounds, what it feels like and what lives inside. They have found an abundance of snails, slugs, worms, centipedes, beetles and woodlice. It was a great opportunity to look at the insects in detail and discuss how they differed, where they lived and of course what they had eaten for lunch!!
Mud play is a beautifully open ended activity that meets the diverse interests of children through multi-sensory experiences and is a fundamental connection with the natural environment surrounding them in our forest. The mud kitchen particularly has been in full swing with children absorbed in creative activities from making mud pies to chocolatey soup. Alongside this they have been developing their fine and gross motor skills through making marks with sticks and testing their balance and coordination on slippery muddy slopes.
It has also been a week of splish, splash, sploshing in the huge muddy puddles and catching the rain on our tongues. The children have been making the most of the rainy weather, catching water from the tarps, flicking the droplets from the leaves, and generally getting as muddy as possible.
It’s wonderful that we can give your children this invaluable opportunity to get their hands, and faces, as dirty as they wish!!
This has also been a week of magical storytelling, with a particular focus on creating stories related to our natural surroundings and what the children have been discovering…
Where did the snail get its shell?
Why does the owl have white feather?
Why are ladybirds red?
Where does the rain, thunder and lightning come from?
If you want a change from the usual night-time routine you can always ask your child to tell you one of these bedtime stories!
We hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham