Our Week in the Forest...
Construction and creativity has been integral to the children’s activities this week in the forest. Their ability to transform the loose parts into the most imaginative structures, contraptions, traps and experiments has been mind-blowing. We know that our children have developed skills and knowledge when it comes to collaborating and problem solving, but this week they had definitely reached another level of inventiveness.
After having observed how we use the ropes to secure tarps in the trees, some of the children decided to use these techniques for their own purposes, so with one rope securely tied overheard they set about their work. After securely tying a small branch to another rope, they threw it up and over the line…. many ideas later they finally found an ideal solution to their climbing harness! So, with one tied in the ‘harness’ and another helping to pull, up the tree they went, absolutely astonishing! It didn’t stop there, everything was more innovative and complex, even the traps involved ideas that incorporated scientific principles to ensure there was going to be no escape for the educators. These didn’t only involve some expertly tied ropes, but had planks carefully balanced with buckets and pans of water that would topple over with the slightest of movements.
Measurement has also been popular throughout the forest this week with the children taking turns to see what they could find to measure with our super long tape measures. It was interesting to observe how this naturally evolved into comparison, looking at which logs were the highest, which branches were the longest and how many benches could be measured together.
Along with the milder weather, we have also been examining the plants and flowers that are growing in and around our nursery. This week we have been discussing the plant, Borage, with its beautiful small blue flowers that the children have noticed growing all around the gardens. Over the next few weeks the children will also be involved in their own planting and will learn about how some specific flowers grow and even how they develop their own seeds. These will eventually flower into lovely little plants from which they can then collect their own seeds for next year.
We hope you all have a lovely weekend and cannot wait to see what next week brings!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham