Our Week in the Forest...
Big ideas, projects and lateral thinking have been integral to the children’s experience this week!
With some new planks and giant logs the children have set about building some wonderful constructions to aid in their role-play. One day they created a fantastic kitchen complete with hose tap and worktop! The children then used this to make cupcakes in pots and pans and took them on trays to the cupcake shop that another group of children had made between some trees! On another day, the children used the planks to challenge their balancing skills at different levels. We had long low walkways for endurance balancing and short steep mountains for some added height! The children were so excited at their achievements they shouted out to all their friends “I did it!!”.
Children have taken their own ideas and gone deep into their own self-designed projects. Two children spent a whole morning carefully laying out logs and planks in a particular arrangement. Through this process there was an incredible amount of problem solving going on. Big logs were rolled and shorter ones carried as a team. After some time, we were informed that they were building a recycling machine and that it was ready. They then took the wheelbarrow and started collecting ‘rubbish’ from the floor to put into the machine to make other objects!
This week we have also been taking lots of water to the forest for the children to experiment with. With all the usual explosions of creativity, there were thousands of things happening with water, from using it in cooking to make soups, potions, cakes and pizzas, and cleaning salad leaves to pouring it down guttering to create boat races and exploring which objects float or sink. The water has also been used to cool us down on the hot and humid days!
We have started to do more forest school projects with the children too and this week they have enjoyed making a scarecrow to protect out vegetable patch by weaving and stuffing old clothes with natural materials and tying it to a large stick! They also made masks using giant leaves, bookmarks with double sided sticky tape and have been using an increasing range of tools! This week some of the children have used the hack saws, hand drills and peelers to create walking sticks, whistles, bow and arrows and models of all sorts!
With so much creativity in the forest at the moment, we can’t wait for next week as we will continue to see the children’s ideas blossom into wonderful projects!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes