What a fantastic week it’s been in the forest! The misty mornings and sunny afternoons kept offering cues to the children to follow and develop their senses. The warm breath coming out of their mouths into the cold air, made dragons and steam trains come to life! Listening to the sound of the ice cracking when they stepped on frozen puddles and feeling the frosty grass in their fingers. It has been wonderful seeing the environment around us become so mystical over the past few months with natural abstract shapes in bare trees just before the first buds begin to appear.
The children have enjoyed using our new scissors with different cutting patterns. They've learned how to use them safely and how to put them away safely when they are finished. They’ve used colourful sheets of paper to cut into small pieces and stick them together with PVA glue and glue sticks. The collages were incredible and super fun to make.
Our little explorers have also enjoyed making pom poms with colourful yarn this week. It was a bit tricky to begin with, but with perseverance and a little support from an educator, the children managed to go around the piece of cardboard to make it super fluffy!
The children have also been busy tracing shapes in cardboard using tree cookies and other round objects. Holding the object with one hand and going around with a pen to make fabulous animals. They stuck googly eyes on the head, little pieces of string and yarn, some even used their pom poms on the body to make piglets, monkeys, cats and giraffes!
Having the time and space to explore their free play has such a positive impact on children’s imagination. They come up with the most amazing plots and games to keep themselves busy and warm. Their social skills are also developing rapidly as they collaboratively and find new ways to solve problems or occasionally, small conflicts. It is not easy sometimes to understand the impact of our own actions on others, but our children learn every day about kindness, empathy and how to make sure their friends are ok.
We had an amazing day playing football with a ball that Pete the gardener kindly gave us. Using a hula hoop to throw the ball through it, or passing the ball to each other, our Little Forest Folk-ers have truly had a wonderful time showing off their attributes with their feet (and mostly their hands!). And of course, ‘What’s the Time Mr Wolf’ was still a popular game in the forest this week, as well as hide & seek. On Thursday, the fog was and some of the children said, ‘It’s really good to play hide & seek in the fog!’
Little Forest Folk
Fulham