It snowed! It finally snowed!
What a beautiful day we enjoyed on Monday with rich golden sunshine glinting off the ice-hardened snow left over from the weekend. We worked with our friends to gather it into a pile so that we could push and mould the icy pieces together and build snowmen, adding features and clothing too. The children were fascinated by the snow on the ground and it was incorporated into every aspect of their play.
We took a little adventure walk away from camp and hunted for ice eggs in the snow, marvelling at the different sizes we could find and guessing what could be inside “This one’s a butterfly", “I found a giant one, it must be a dinosaur!”. This extended into the children’s desire to create nests to keep the eggs safe until they hatched and I loved to see how they all sprang into action as soon as one of them came up with the idea. They gathered leaves, twigs and soft fallen pine needles and worked together to create the safe place needed for their precious eggs. These moments, as educators, are wonderful to witness as we quietly step back to allow the children’s narrative to flow along under its own momentum, watching closely so we may step in to support individuals when needed or mediate disputes but being mindful not to interfere and damage the moment. Disputes are a fantastic way for the children to flex their social skills and as they grow together we see individuals involve themselves to take on a mediator role more often. This can take the form of making suggestions for sharing or sometimes pointing out that something was only done by mistake to help their friends find solutions. What is always funny is when we occasionally hear phrases pop up that we recognise from a particular educator or that have clearly come from a parent.
Some fantastic observations and conversations sprang up on the subject of snow with some children sharing their knowledge "snow is frozen raindrops that come from cold clouds” while others explored what they encountered around them in greater detail. We investigated what happened when we rubbed chunks of ice in my warm hands compared to between one of the children’s insulated gloves and they worked their way to drawing conclusions about why the snow was dispersing in some places but not others. We threw chunks of ice high up into the air to see what happened when it landed on grass vs the hard path and then piled more chunks under the running drainpipe so that we could watch how it interacted “it’s making a tunnel!”.
On one of the warmer days this week the children gathered fallen apples and a group worked to take turns bashing the fruit with a branch to break it up before laying it out on logs for the worms to snack on. They practiced their mark making and made a sign to let passers-by know “Here are the apples” and watched in great excitement every time a member of the public stopped to read it!
The robin’s tree climbing skills are coming on in leaps and bounds with the importance of them climbing completely under their own steam leading how we support this. We will never lift a child into a tree, instead focus on coaching them to learn the perseverance, patience and concentration needed to achieve it on their own. It might take them far longer to get where they’re going but being able to witness the powerful moment when they get there is one of the best things to witness.
It has been a wonderful week, full of variety and, as always, we feel privileged to spend it with these wonderful little humans. We hope you all have lovely weekends!
Little Forest Folk
Fulham