Our Week in the Forest...
This week in the forest the children have been fully engaged in some wonderfully creative role-play, superhuman climbing and balancing as well as a range of different artistic activities.
The depth of the role-play games our Little Forest Folk-ers are engaged with at the moment is astounding. It is easy to forget just how young they are as they display speaking and listening skills, negotiating prowess and an ability to collaborate in ways that are far beyond their limited years. One day this week a group of children became a family. They spent a while deciding who was going to be who and naturally came to a consensus. They then spent the next 2 hours setting up their home and acting out their own stories. The mummy and daddy characters spent much of their time preparing food and going out shopping whilst the baby characters stayed at home napping and demanding toys or more food. One of the babies then got sick and a doctor was called to give them medicine. “This medicine will heal your tummy and we will then be able to go on our holiday!” proclaimed the mother. The whole family then got up and climbed onto the large log to drive off in their wonderful forest bus!
The language the children are using is truly remarkable and enhances their ability to play together. We have had a role-play bus, train, rocket ship, boat and forest shop this week. The shop gave our Little Forest Folk-ers the opportunity to use natural materials and trade using sticks, leaves and little wooden log slices to write on. With Ruth as the shopkeeper, the children explored different number problems as they tried to bid for the best green leaves.
Welcoming back some old friends this week has been such a pleasure. It was as if they had never left. We safely climbed our old climbing tree showing off our balance, coordination and ability to self-assess risks! We created some forest swings and the children enjoyed experimenting with different ways of using them. Some enjoyed spinning around, others went backwards, on their bellies or even standing up on one leg whilst swinging!
Artistic creativity is always present in the forest and this week our Little Forest Folk-ers have been getting all crafty! They made models using sticks and twine, decorating them with felt pens and leaves. They also used paints to make their own pieces of art and decorated little stone figures. Mobile phones from pieces of bark were used in their role-play and wonderful baby mobiles using string and leaves strung between trees. The children also enjoyed flying paper airplanes and testing to see how far they could make them fly!
We all can’t wait for next week and some new and exciting adventures on Putney Heath!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes