Nature play
What an interesting week. Glorious sunshine for the majority of the week with then torrential rain on one afternoon meaning such extensive floods that we had to carry the children across the bridge for our journey back to the car park! The children thought the storm and the subsequent flooding were amazing.
We've had a week of really engaging nature play. The children have been using their imaginations and their creative sides with lots of nature craft and stick play. This week we have galloped on our horse sticks around the meadow, we've had sticks as swords and sticks as wands. We've fed stick animals and have built stick houses.
We looked at mini beasts, cradling slugs gently in our hands and watching bees collecting pollen from the buttercups across the meadow. We then extended our discussion to talk about bees making honey and all the delicious foods we can eat with honey. We made roads for woodlice and hammocks for snails.
Our adventures out of sight were as popular as ever. This week we've decided to put Go Pro cameras on the children to allow us to really see what a child experiences at Little Forest Folk. The results have been fascinating.
Firstly, wow, these children RUN. They run everywhere. They run and leap over large obstacles barely without breaking their stride. Their coordination is phenomenal. They climb so well, balance so well and show excellent judgement on their physical capabilities.
What was really interesting was listening to their conversations and hearing the children's self regulation. Some of them keep up a constant chatter just releasing a stream of consciousness. Often they are reminding themselves of safety rules or repeating new facts they have learned and playing with their knowledge and language skills to truly understand new information.
At some stage we will try to pull together some footage to share with our parents but for now we are using it as a wonderful tool for improving our teaching and our playing.
We ended the week with the sweetest request ever. During our dress up and face painting time, three of the children requested that they be face painted to look like Jose. So we obliged. The result made us melt a little inside!! Beautiful, beautiful relationships form at Little Forest Folk.
Parent request
With next week forecast to be a hot and wet one, this is just a reminder that when the children arrive in the mornings they need to have their first layer of sunscreen on as we don't apply sunscreen until we arrive into the forest site. Also, please ensure that on sunny days your little one brings a sun hat and as always a spare change of clothes.
Staffing update
Stephanie has had a great first week in the forest. She has been going out on lots of adventures and will soon know the forest like the back of her hand. Thanks to all of our families for being so friendly and welcoming to her.
Katherine is still finishing up her goodbyes in her current nursery but we are excited to be welcoming Alex to the forest on Monday. Alex joins us from Australia, she's fresh off the boat so we look forward to sharing our summer sun in the forest with her.
Dressing for the weather
The warmer weather (fingers crossed) looks here to stay!
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
Now that the sun is here to stay, we would ask that on sunny days you apply a layer of sunblock to the children before you drop them off. We will then top up their sunblock regularly throughout the day. Also, please ensure the children have sun hats on sunny days.
Next week in the forest
Next week we will be trialing an entire week of no resources as we've seen some beautiful play, incredible creativity and inspiration on our no resources days this week. We love our days being entirely child and nature led and are looking forward to seeing what next week brings.
Food
We've really enjoyed our new meals courtesy of the talented Becky. It's so rewarding to see children really enjoying their food whilst also learning about the importance of excellent nutrition.
We hope you have a lovely weekend!
Little Forest Folk
