Fulham - Forest experiments

Our Week in the Forest... 

There has been a strong experimental element in the forest this week. We’ve had erupting volcanos, blasting space rockets, a wormery and forming crystallisations. We have a book in the forest that is all about scientific experiments and so with the children showing an interest, we decided to recreate some in the forest. We made an exploding volcano out of bicarbonate soda and vinegar, which the kids then went home and thought about, came back and devised a plan to make the explosion even more spectacular. The second time around, the experiment involved a toy rocket that one of the children had brought in, a straw and bicarbonate soda and vinegar. After a few attempts, we all decided we needed to adjust the quantities of both ingredients for the grand finale – more vinegar, less bicarbonate soda and to our amazement, the rocket flew more than 4ft off the ground! Although Arturo conducted the experiments, the ideas and predictions were all child led- bringing an air of curiosity that would be difficult to find in an indoor setting, especially considering our children are only 3 or 4 years old!

After observing how fascinated the children were with the moths that we looked after over the last few weeks, we decided to order a wormery so the children could gather worms and then watch them over a period of weeks. It involved them finding the perfect soil, digging up the best superworms they could find and finally constructing the whole thing.

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Aside from all the science, we also had some very exciting visitors in the forest this week! For the past few weeks, Jo has been leading musical sessions with the children as part of her Musika training. This week, 3 musicians from Musico Musika came down to the forest to lead one of the sessions themselves and the children thoroughly enjoyed it! We had our very own Little Forest Folk concert with everyone singing, tapping and clapping along and joining in with the actions in each song. The musicians even left us a special box of musical instruments that were very warmly received by the children.
 
With the sun shining (for the most part!) we even got a chance to visit our greenhouse and check on all the different things we have planted. We found that our thyme, rosemary, basil, mint and other herbs have all started to grow. We’ll be checking them regularly to see their progress.
 
Every week in the forest is a breath of fresh air, the children bring an endless supply of enthusiasm and curiosity with them and this is apparent in how fast the days fly by and the variety of activities that can be observed on an average day in the forest. With the end of the school year nearing, it is so nice to see how all the children are settled in their routines and comfortable in the forest, with every child growing more and more confident with each tree that is climbed and with every challenged accomplished. We look forward to all the exciting requests and stories the children bring with them next week!

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Little Forest Folk
Fulham