Welcoming a new friend to the nursery!
I’m very excited to announce a new friend to the nursery! We’ve welcomed a beautiful mollusc into our indoor site to come and stay for a while. His name is Leopold and he is an albino African land snail, whose mummy is our wonderful manager Robyn! The children (and educators) have been so charmed with him, watching him unfurl, wander around his terrarium and munch down on delicious lettuce leaves. Having an animal friend in the nursery is so beneficial; it teaches us gentle appreciation for nature (he needs the odd water spray and feeding but doesn’t like being poked!), and sparks fascination as to all the incredible animals in the world, just waiting to be discovered and properly cared for.
With Monday being the longest day of the year, and Thursday being Midsummer’s Day we decided to celebrate the season in the forest. In Sweden Midsummer’s Day is one of the most important and celebrated holidays in the calendar so our amazing Swedish educator Yolli led our festivities. First, we sang ‘Små Grodorna’ around the log circle, a traditional Midsummer song about frogs (before transforming into leaping frogs around the forest!). Celebrating other cultures promotes our British values and expands our explorer’s knowledge of the world. Over the next few days, we tried our hands at crafting flower objects. We practiced our fine motor skills cutting, colouring and sticking to create flower crowns and flower wands. The latter got misused a bit turning teachers into frogs and worms! How rude!
Earlier in the week we experimented with paints and cling film. With the help of some superstar children, we wrapped it from tree to tree and had fun peering through it like glass windows. Some of us thought it looked just like the web of a giant spider (yikes). We mixed colours on pallets and on our cling-canvas and learned which colours combine to make new colours, and the effect of white and black paint on our pigments. When we were finished with our large painting, we decided to do smaller ones and paint our nails to make hand rainbows.
Story books have been inspiring heaps of imaginary play in the forest this week. Old favourites and new classics have had us enraptured while reading and continuing the tales from the page to the forest. Peter Rabbit has inspired naughty bunnies pilfering vegetables from farmers, The Jungle Book has turned our woods into a rainforest of tigers, snakes and bears on the move and Superworm has encouraged acts of heroism and mischief. The Lorax has also been very deservedly getting plenty of reading and discussion. The parallels from the Lorax’s world to ours are clear to us and the children and inspires lots of talk about the environment. We need to respect nature and our natural resources, and fight to protect them! Because once they are gone there might not be any magic seeds left to rejuvenate them! Books are an infinitely valuable resource in the forest, five minutes of storytelling can lead to hours of engaging play and thought-provoking discussion.
Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Stay safe, be well and love life!
Little Forest Folk
Chiswick