Down at the Bottom of the Garden……

At Footsteps our ethos is based around getting lots of fresh air, Forest School principles and lots of fun physical activities in our surrounding space.  As such, our Footsteps locations have always been very important.  They all have been chosen to ensure our children have access to lots of outside space, and opportunities for managed risk, learning and of course plenty of fun

So other than looking for eggs left by a very special floppy eared visitor, what’s been going on in our gardens this month?

At Oving we have been very fortunate to have had the skills of handy Luke (our lovely team member Clare’s husband) who made us a fantastic new mud kitchen for our Forest School area.  Complete with menu chalk board, sink and hooks to hang our utensils. Now our children can make mud pies to their heart’s content.  We are ever so grateful to Luke for this amazing addition. We’ve also been making great use of our fantastic playground for climbing, sliding, balancing and swinging.  All brilliant ways to bring confidence and physical development.

At Leighton Buzzard we have really been enjoying the sunshine. We created a new sandpit area to enjoy and have been looking at different dry and wet textures. We have been using our tyre swing, playing football, and exploring all the buttercups that have popped up to say hello.  We have looked at insects that live in the garden and been able to go on some lovely walks to the local park too.

At Watermead we love to put out new activities for the children to explore.  From tunnels to balancing beams, hoops to quiet reading tents, bricks for tower building, water trays to mud pies.  There is a space for everyone to enjoy.  We have also made a great start to planting up our new allotment area – and the potatoes are already in!

Farnborough continued the outside fun in their brand NEW space. Over Easter the garden has been totally transformed with new AstroTurf and new grass which the children will be able to enjoy over the summer term.  There are plans for plenty of barefoot play as they enjoy new textures underfoot. There has been plenty going on in Forest School too as they engage the children using their own MARVELous interests.  They even went on a hunt for infinity stones to practice colour matching and counting.

At Chalfont we love to use the access to our playing fields for lots of new friends to come and join us in our play.  We loving having our Playball and tennis coaches come to visit and learning new skills, co-ordination and confidence.  We’ve also been very busy indeed over at Forest School.  Finding natural resources fort our artwork, science experiments and for using to help with mark making and maths activities.  There has been digging, planting, sliding and exploring. We’ve found lots of creatures along the way too – our favourite was discovering 2 sleeping newts.

At Maple Cross there has been plenty of fun in the sun.  The children love to balance on the tyre track, use the mini diggers in the construction area and role play in the outside kitchen.  There has also been some of our favourite activities going on too.  Bug hunting!  From woodlice to worms, frogs to snails, slugs to centipedes.  Each creature brings its own sense of wonder, lots of lovely language, courage and the opportunity to talk about how we look after the creatures that help us.

We do have just a few spaces remaining for some of our sites, so if you know anyone who would love to come and play at Footsteps, do put them in touch.