Following the announcement of our Queen’s award in April, we are delighted to share an article written about Little Forest Folk by a journalist who visited us in May.
We’ve been bursting with excitement and now that it’s the Queen’s birthday and the official announcement day, we are absolutely delighted to finally share with you the news that Little Forest Folk has been given the royal seal of approval.
Following our being selected by Tatler as being one of the finest nurseries in the nation last month, we are now delighted to share with you an article written about Little Forest Folk by a journalist who visited us in our Wimbledon setting a few weeks ago.
Well, this weekend was the long awaited Nursery World Awards! It was a fabulous event and we were delighted to be recognised in such a large industry such as the early years to be one of the industry leaders.
Happy half-term to all our sessional children and their families. We have missed them dearly in the forest. The little ones and educators are eager for their return next week. With our sessional friends away, we welcomed some new and familiar faces this week. The holiday campers came ready to go and embraced the mild but wet conditions in the forest.
This week we’ve noticed the days are getting shorter and the evenings are arriving sooner than the days before. The plane tree continues its preparation to sleep for the winter and like the animals in the forest we are getting ready for the cold weather by wearing warm clothes and eating lots of nutritious food to keep our bodies healthy and warm.
What a great week we’ve had here in the forest! Our learning intention for the fortnight has been introductory phonics, letter recognition and early writing - and I’m pleased to say the Little Forest Folk-ers have done marvellously and loved the exciting ways us educators have delivered this learning. Although the temperature has dropped and we’re experiencing some light showers, the energy at camp has stayed bright, exciting and full of warmth.
Brrr!! This week started off feeling like Winter but warmed up with lots of rain, which was the perfect opportunity to go on a puddle hunt. The little ones searched Putney Heath, trying to locate the biggest puddle they could jump in. After walking for what felt like ages, they found the most ginormous puddle. The puddle was the best place for our Little Forest Folk-ers to show off their jumping skills and see who could make the biggest splash.
This week in the forest, we’ve been enjoying the autumn season. The rainclouds have settled over the forest, giving the trees much needed water from the hot summer that we’ve had. Our plane tree is beginning to change colour from yellow-green to a lovely shade of copper red. We enjoy the crisp morning air as we eat our breakfast and warm up for the day by playing tag and running races before we settle for the day in the forest.
It's been a thoroughly brilliant week for us all on the common. We started out the week with our first adventure walk of the season! For some, their first ever adventure walk with us, which is delightful. We had a short walk down to Caesar's Well and the children had a blast walking beneath the autumnal canopy of auburn and bronze. When we returned, we were due a well-earned rest and a good story, so the children sat, sipping their water, and listened as Educator Luca read a somewhat dramatic reading of 'The Elephant and the Bad Baby.'
This week in the Fulham Forest we have been focusing on our letter formation and phonic sounds. We have prepared a vast variety of activities to support this such as using the wooden letters and alphabet word cards to encourage the children to think about the sounds that each letter makes. One of the educators prepared dotted name cards for the children and they were able to practise going over the dots to connect them together and make the individual letters of their own names.
This week was made for playing, with happy times never ending in the forest amongst the children. Our week’s highlights included creating puppet shows using our child and educator constructed theatre, which was an ongoing project over the past few weeks where the children had the opportunity to practice using the forest school tools to help build it. The children led tales entertaining their peer audience, inviting audience participation using personal props. It was wonderful to see the little ones’ confidence blossom as they entered the stage.
To switch things up this week, the children headed back to their roots and ventured to Monkey Camp! A lot has changed since our Little Forest Folk-ers last played on camp, so there was a plethora of opportunities to explore. The little ones have been fascinated by the slacklines and ropes, so they created their own high ropes course. Using the ropes as their guides, they climbed and swung like the animals their very camp was named after.
What a busy week we had in the forest! This week, we turned the forest into a construction site. We helped the Three Little Pigs make a strong house to keep the Big Bad Wolf away. We worked as a team carrying our materials throughout the forest using our wheelbarrows. We used tools to dig up mud to make bricks and collected sticks to make the frame of the house.
Such a wonderful week at Wimbledon! This week we’ve taken some time to focus on the change in weather and incorporating the start of Autumn into our play. Our favourite activity has certainly been painting with some lovely autumnal colours. The children also tried painting with some natural paint made from turmeric in the week, the gorgeous bright pigment from this really helped embrace the Autumn colours of the forest!
After another fabulous week here in the Fulham forest, I am pleased to inform you all of how much fun we have had! At the beginning of the week a safari jeep was appeared on camp made from our crates and to bring it to life, all of the small world animals came out to play. The children had great fun with these, using them to not only role play but to have a sing-along to some of our favourite animal nursery rhymes too!
