Our week in the forest

We have been dragons, kings and knights in the forest this week! The children have loved exploring this theme in many different ways. We have read lots of stories related to this topic; created bows and arrows; made castles and role- played to perfection! We built a fire at the beginning of the week and linked this to our theme, which had us all as fire breathing dragons by the end (after enjoying our toasted marshmallows, of course).

This week has also seen a lot of child-initiated construction. One of the older holiday camp children built an obstacle course which was extremely popular with the rest of the group. We notice lots of children rearranging the logs at base camp too! There has been wonderful collaborative play as small groups assist one another in heaving logs into wheelbarrows to transport before building with them. Great mathematics, problem solving and communication and language development going on here!

“I think this log is too heavy!”

“We need to roll it into the wheelbarrow.”

“Here, can you help me with this one? It needs two people.”

We continue to enjoy using the forest blackberries in very creative ways. We set up a table worktop which very quickly became a blackberry jam making factory! We have also made beautiful forest artwork with the juice, some of you may have seen this hanging up in the Scout Hall.

The children have been requesting lots of adventure walks this week. They have loved going down to “the beach” to cool off on some of the hotter days we’ve had this week. We were also incredibly lucky to come across the council gardener who had been cutting all the fields with his mowing tractor. The children were fascinated by this and got to take a closer look at the tractor before playing with the dried grass!

News

This week we have welcomed Keziah into the forest. Keziah is from Cape Town, South Africa and is passionate about connecting children with nature. Keziah will be joining the Fulham team as soon as the site is up and running but was keen to come on board straightaway and will be training with us here at Wimbledon.

This week was our last week of holiday camp and lots of us have been reflecting on how lovely the past few weeks have been. The Little Forest Folk children have been so welcoming and kind to all the new children, making us all incredibly proud of them! It has been so special to watch them develop new friendships and learn from the older children. We’ll look forward to the next holiday camp, but in the meantime we are super excited to be welcoming back all of our sessional children on the 5th September.

Next week we are having some in-house training. Only full time children’s sessions will continue as normal, with the lower numbers allowing staff to alternate between the forest and training back at the Scout Hall.

Just a reminder that we will be having our inset day on Tuesday 6th September. The inset day is a vital day for the team to prepare for the new academic year, so we will be closed to families on this day to allow for this.

It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to Jose today. We have loved working with him and are positive that all of the children and their families will miss him as much as we will! It was not an easy decision for Jose to leave and we fully support his return to his studies, hopeful that he will be back to join us in future. We are positive you’ll join us in wishing him happiness and success for the future.

Dressing for the weather

According to the forecast next week is due to be another hot one! Please remember to apply your child's first layer of sunscreen before they arrive and pack a named sunhat into their bag. Thank you!

As a guideline next week the children should be wearing:

One pair of comfortable trousers (jogging bottoms or leggings)
One t-shirt
One fleecy zip up jacket (in a backpack just in case)
One pair of socks
Wellies or trainers (as long as you don't ind them getting dirty!)

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

Little Forest Folk