Our Week in the Forest...
The sounds and sights of the forest this week could have easily been mistaken for Santa’s elves busy at work making toys and presents for Christmas, flickering fairy lights, the smell of freshly sawn branches, the splitting of wood and the whirring of hand drills...
The theme for this week began with a discovery made by some of the children late last Friday… It all started when one of the children noticed a package under a table at our indoor provision, and inside they found to their surprise a small Christmas tree along with some decorations. This of course led to much excitement, the group decided to then put it all together, decorated it with tinsel as they all talked about Christmas. The only problem was that they couldn’t find many decorations and the children wondered where we could get some more. One suggested buying them from a shop, another thought we could make them and a third announced that he was going to make some in the forest with the saw and drill. The other children joined in excitedly calling out what tools they would use. The educators thought this was a superb idea and so this week we have been supporting the children in using a whole array of tools to create some magical Christmas decorations.
On Monday, the children started with the billhook and mallet to create shapes from splitting some small logs. It was interesting to observe how many recalled that if you split a circle in half you get two semi-circles, and from splitting each semi-circle various triangles can be created, and when arranged in a certain way you can make a star! Some children took their shapes away and used them as props for their play, whilst others used them as printing blocks with paints to create designs on material.
The tool theme continued throughout the week with children also using the bowsaw to cut wooden discs from a large branch they had found in the forest. With their usual determination, they sawed these larger than average tree cookies, delighting in how huge they were when finally cut. Some children collected and transported them in buckets, some used them imaginatively as bases for their ‘mud pizzas’ or the bread for their ‘grass sandwich’. Some children wanted to take them home and others wanted to save them for drilling later on.
At the end of the week it was the turn of their favourite tool, the pinion drill. Many of the children can independently use these delightful tools to confidently drill holes so this was an opportunity for them to show off their skills, even with these very thick wooden discs. Afterwards they decorated them with paint, chalk and pens in preparation for threading their strings, soon to be hanging from all their Christmas trees which we are sure Santa will be admiring upon his visit…
Little Forest Folk
Fulham