Our Week in the Forest...
This week has been full of warmth, sunshine and fun. The children are showing incredible independence when working together, collaborating and enjoying being part of a team. They have worked together on creative, artistic and imaginative projects with their own shared objectives. They have also been extremely keen nature enthusiasts this week and have had lots of group discussions about what they have observed.
One day a large group of children wanted to become the Avengers and save the world from ‘baddies’. The group started to play games pretending to be different superheroes and then collectively decided that they needed some props to make their role-play come alive! They went to the crafts area and used pieces of fabric, tape, paper and natural materials to build superhero gloves, high tech watches with special powers, potato shooters and bracelets with flower power! Once adorned in their new outfits and ‘gizmos’ the children set about making traps using the long ropes and sticks. They negotiated their ideas throughout the project with a maturity that belies their years and came to agreements independently!
With the sun blazing down the children were eager to explore Putney Heath. They now know some different locations that they like to go to explore and will tell us when they want to adventure out to them. When deciding which way to go the children are becoming very adept at conducting democratic votes. This week the children loved visiting the pond. The waters have receded somewhat which has exposed some muddy banks for the children to explore. They supported each other to balance and even saved each other when a boot got stuck! Whilst exploring this new environment the children looked closely at the habitat around them that was brimming with life. They spotted mayfly, pond skaters, water boatmen, dragonflies, carp, pond worms, larvae, and a tiny little froglet! The children were incredibly excited by this and were very keen to study everything in detail and learn more about the anatomy and lives of the different creatures we spotted!
At Rocks Lane we had a wonderful experience of observing the life cycle of a butterfly! Last week the children found the caterpillar from a peacock butterfly and many children were keen to study it close up. Then early this week we found a chrysalis stuck to a picnic blanket. The children then observed the chrysalis over the week keen to see if anything had changed. Then one morning when the children arrived at Rocks Lane we noticed that the butterfly was emerging! It sat carefully on the edge of its chrysalis waiting for its wings to unfurl. The children were so excited and were keen to feed and set it free in the forest! They discussed this as a group and came to the conclusion that the butterfly would prefer to drink nectar from the flowers outside rather than anything we could provide.
It has been wonderful to see the group as a whole develop their interpersonal skills and show such awareness of each other and their ideas. We are all looking forward to next week when we will welcome parents into the forest to play and explore with their little ones!
Enjoy your weekend adventures!
Little Forest Folk
Barnes