Our Week in the Forest...
This week has been a busy week with such a variety of opportunities in the forest and friendships are continuing to blossom. The children have been the most creative explorers throughout the entire time and made the most of what was on offer. Whilst our resident worms have been a constant interest, we have been observing the world around us in more detail to encourage the children to discover and learn about different types of insects! We have discovered caterpillars, butterflies, centipedes and spiders, with the children having a fantastic time transforming the activity into a treasure hunt! One of the children would excitedly shout, “Look I found one!”. The search for insects then inspired the children to make a special secret hideout where they could watch out for spiders or wood lice that come their way and to see what they could catch with the nets!
One day this week, we had a picnic in the morning with biscuits, a range of fruit and home-made banana ice lollies! The magical morning continued with a wonderful walk through the walled garden. Being natural investigators the children often enjoy visiting the garden to smell and feel the flowers, plants and herbs.
Our ‘Musiko Musika’ music session has played a major part during the week where all the children experimented and discovered the different sounds the instruments made. They listened with great interest, learning some new songs and trying out some of the different instruments together.
Along with the music the children have continued to respond so well to, we carried on with our tool work. They have been using the billhook to split some small logs to produce an array of shaped wood that would eventually become their printing blocks for making designs. As with our previous tool activities all the children are very aware of the rules related to using tools safely, they always listen intently when the safety rules are being explained, watch with great interest when the tool is being demonstrated and can follow instructions with ease. The block printing was a fantastic opportunity for the children to experiment with colours and learn about the different shapes that had produced, from semi-circles to rectangles.
On Thursday, during our snack time, Marlon read ‘When a Monster is born,’ as at the end of the story the two monsters become married. We then shared with the children that someone in the log circle was also getting married at the weekend, "but who?" he asked the children. It turned out that it was Conor! It was an opportunity to then explain why Conor would be away on holiday for a couple of weeks. This led to much excited conversation about who else might be marrying whom in the near future!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham